Artificial Stupidity

Paul Taylor 2010

Artificial Intelligence

• What is it?

Artificial

• Fake!

Intelligence

Latin: intelligere:- ‘to understand’

There are two general meanings derived from this, one by the APA, and a second by a group of intelligence researchers

APA

“Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought.”

Source: Intelligence: Knowns and Unknowns, 1996, AP, February

Mainstream Science on Intelligence

“A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.

It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts.

Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do”

Source: Wall Street Journal, December, 1994

What is the essence of these statements?

APA: “Individuals differ from one another in their ability to understand complex ideas, to adapt effectively to the environment, to learn from experience, to engage in various forms of reasoning, to overcome obstacles by taking thought.”

Int Sci: “A very general mental capability that, among other things, involves the ability to reason, plan, solve problems, think abstractly, comprehend complex ideas, learn quickly and learn from experience.

It is not merely book learning, a narrow academic skill, or test-taking smarts.

Rather, it reflects a broader and deeper capability for comprehending our surroundings—"catching on", "making sense" of things, or "figuring out" what to do”

The Roots of AI

The Difference Engine• 1822, Charles Babbage• It was a Polynomial Calculator• See LBP version

http://www.meccano.us/difference_engines/rde_1/DEFront.jpg

1837 The Analytical Engine

• Effectively would have been a mechanical computer

• Babbage worked on it till he died in 1871• Work was abandoned in 1878

1950 The Turing Test

http://huehueteotl.files.wordpress.com/2007/04/turing_test.gif

http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/myl/llog/DilbertTuring.jpg

1990 The Loebner Prize

• http://www.jabberwacky.com/chat-george

Symbolic Languageshttp://library.wustl.edu/units/spec/rarebooks/semeiology/arnold6.gif

Neat and Scruffy AI

http://www.goodlookingdog.com/uploads/Scruffy.jpg

http://www.greghoganphotography.com/nagoh/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/scruffy.jpg

Expert Systems

http://oopweb.com/Prolog/Documents/XSIP/Volume/intro1-1.gif

http://richardbowles.tripod.com/cpp/projects/proj3a.gif

Genetic Algorithmshttp://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/mgold/GeneticAlgorithm12032005044205AM/Images/GeneticAlgorithm.gif

http://folk.uio.no/oivindb/bilder/chicken.gif

Neural Networks (Connectionism)http://aemc.jpl.nasa.gov/images/neural_network_browse2.jpg

http://computingassociate.com/images/neural-network.jpg

The Problem: Snails

• A Snail has only 3 neurons!!!

http://idle.slashdot.org/story/10/06/01/1324220/Snails-On-Methamphetamine

http://i199.photobucket.com/albums/aa199/dk49/neural-network.jpg

The CYC Project cyc.com• This is a project designed to capture the commonsense of

humanity, ambitious: YES• It currently contains x00,000’s of terms and millions of assertions.• The founder, Doug Lenat predicts that the project will need around

100 million assertions before it can begin ‘reading’ literature.

http://64.202.120.86/upload/image/personal-column/israel-biniamini/one-more-meaning-of-computer-science/cyc.jpg

And that’s where we are at!

• Google Images ‘AI’• See ‘Don’t Burn the Cat’ • http://thefutureofthings.com/column/1001/dont-burn-the-

cat.html

http://aftermathnews.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/forbidden_planet_robot1.jpg?w=287&h=421

http://www.cs.umb.edu/~marc/cs271/AI.jpg

http://images.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/20080523/300.terminator.052308.jpg

Video Game AI

Steve Rabin (Game AI) provides 2 definitions:

“Game AI is any technique that contributes to the perceived intelligence of an entity, regardless of what’s under the hood.”

“Techniques that generate artefacts that would normally be created by the game developers (like environment/layout, story, music, or models/animations/textures).”

Video Game AI

When was the first AI introduced to gaming?

Video Game AI

When was the first AI introduced to gaming?

It all depends on your classification of AI

Space Invaders responded to the player input...

http://www.reelmovienews.com/files/space-invaders-still.jpg

Halo AI – Chris Butcher• The character uses its AI "senses" to perceive the world -- to

detect what's going on around it. • The AI takes the raw information that it gets based on its

perception and interprets the data. • The AI turns that interpreted data into more processed

information • The AI makes decisions about what its actions should be based

on that information. • Then the AI figures out how it can best perform those actions to

achieve the desired result based on the physical state of the world around it.

Halo 1 Decision Making

Only 4 states:• Idle • Guard/Patrol • Attack/Defend • Retreat

Tough Means Smart!

• When you improve the AI relative to the player, obviously the game gets tougher.

• However, when you make the AI tougher (e.g. with more health points), the players believe they are smarter.

Balance Difficulty Levels

“If the game goes from easy to hard and back again, players attribute the easy parts to poor AI and the hard parts to evil level designers.”

Make Behaviours Even More Obvious

“Initially nobody noticed so we had to keep adding clues to make it more obvious. By the time we shipped we had made it so not only does every single Grunt run away every single time an Elite is killed.”

Even with the exaggerated animations and sounds, they estimate that less than a third of the players understood the connection.

Sensible Design Goals

• Intelligible — The AI should be easy to understand.

• Interactive — All in-game actors should focus on the player.

• Unpredictable — Gameplay should not become repetitive.

Playtest as Much as You Can

• A very typical statement of Bungie

http://img.qj.net/uploads/articles_module2/74305/news_hb3_qjpreviewth.jpg

http://meekmok.com/sassy/images/playtesting_poster.jpg

Cover Up Weaknesses with Design

A good design always takes into account problems with AI and gameplay, and addresses these issues.

In Halo for example, two specific problems were fixed by negatively reinforcing certain playing tactics:

• Rushing certain levels with the assault rifle isn’t fun because the levels end too quickly. To fix this, Bungie made the AI more accurate the longer the player is out of cover.

• Also, the AI isn’t very good at dealing with close targets moving quickly, so the design was extended to give them powerful melee attacks.

Details May Appear as Bugs

“Early versions of Halo’s AI had a short pause between seeing you and recognizing that you were an enemy. This was to allow people to get the jump on the AI or retreat if they were getting in over their heads. Playtest feedback showed that players assumed this Feature was a Bug and they all said it made the AI look dumb.”

Other ‘tweaks’ in Halo

Strategic Spaces to Emphasize the AI:• Battle Area — Linear corridors aren’t much fun to have

battles in. Instead there needs to be lots of interconnected space for flanking and other tactical manoeuvres.

• Killing Zones — Since large spaces can be chaotic, the designers must establish an open area between two positions with good cover. This makes the battle feel more directed.

Other ‘tweaks’ in Halo

Tactical Scripting to Improve Battles:• An aggressive territory that it should occupy

by attacking.• A defensible location for the group to fallback

to.

Other ‘tweaks’ in Halo

Annotated Firing Positions to Control Battles:• In Halo the designers can add annotations to

the level to specify firing positions. This provides better time-dependent control over the combat

Other ‘tweaks’ in Halo

Emphasize the Tactical Goals of Squads:• “Players are naively confident in your AI

programmer. They will assume your AI knows they are supposed to be protecting the tractor beam power switch until you prove that they are just standing around.”

Other ‘tweaks’ in Halo

Make it Easy to Control Friendly AI:• “Unfortunately the Player is often forced to be

a manager instead of a hero the end result is that the Player often ignores this option.”

The friendly AI actors are certainly autonomous, but they can still get into trouble with grenades, etc. A few Halo 3 reviews mention these bugs in some way… Co-op AI is certainly not an easy problem to solve.

The Halo 2 Combat Cycle

http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050311/figure01.jpg

Halo 2 Behaviour Treehttp://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050311/figure02.jpg

The Halo 2 AI Hierarchy

http://www.gamasutra.com/gdc2005/features/20050311/figure07.jpg

Designing your own AI

• Know the scale• Choose the simplest usable form• Implement the AI independent of the level

design• Have fun finding your bugs

The End

• http://aigamedev.com/open/reviews/halo-ai/• http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/halo2-a

i2.htm• http://www.bungie.net/images/Inside/publica

tions/presentations/publicationsdes/design/gdc02_jaime_griesemer.pdf

• http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/2250/gdc_2005_proceeding_handling_.php