Kotaku: Ai

Computer Learns to Play Civilization by Reading the Instruction Manual

Owen Good — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 20:30:00 EDT

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Starting from nothing, a computer taught itself to read the instruction manual for Civilization and saw its rate of victory jump from 46 percent to 79 percent. More »

Can You Beat A Computer At One Of The World's Oldest Games?

Mike Fahey — Mon, 07 Mar 2011 14:00:00 EST

As the world continues its love affair with Watson. the Jeopardy champion computer, The New York Times creates a simple online game that demonstrates how an artificial intelligence can outsmart a human at a slightly simpler game. More »

Can A Super Smart Computer Teach Game Characters To Be As Stupid As Humans?

Brian Crecente — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:00:00 EST

Supercomputer Watson can best the best of us in Jeopardy, but can it make the games we play at home more challenging and fun? More »

Battle Capcom's Best And Darkest In Marvel Vs. Capcom 3's Shadow Mode

Mike Fahey — Mon, 07 Feb 2011 11:40:00 EST

If you find yourself lacking quality opponents when Marvel Vs. Capcom 3 comes out next week, a new challenge is just around the corner in the form of downloadbale Shadow Mode battles. More »

Watson Is A Machine, And He Will Kick Your Ass At Jeopardy

Luke Plunkett — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 04:30:00 EST

An IBM supercomputer codenamed "Watson" just played two of Jeopardy's greatest human players and emerged the victor. More »

A Robot That Knows How To Read

Mike Fahey — Mon, 06 Dec 2010 14:30:00 EST

Teaching a robot to recognize symbols is one thing; teaching a robot to actually read and understand those symbols is another thing entirely, but researchers in the UK are getting the job done, thanks to a little artificial intuition. More »

You Can't Beat This Starcraft AI

Luke Plunkett — Tue, 19 Oct 2010 00:00:00 EDT

Beating the computer at Starcraft can be tough enough as it is, but let university programmers at the AI and it becomes almost invincible. More »

How Gaming Helped Create A SexBot's Skin-Deep Personality

Brian Crecente — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 14:00:00 EST

If you can get past the skin-soft silicon, the over-sexualized mouth, the transparent nightie and uncomfortably-separated thighs, Douglas Hines latest invention could offer some interesting insight into the way games interact with people. More »

Robot Learns How To Play Pitfall

Luke Plunkett — Wed, 24 Jun 2009 04:30:00 EDT

We. Are. Doomed. While Japanese robots divert our attention with cute faces and coffee-making, the real work is being done at places like Rutgers University, where a robot has learned how to play Pitfall. More »

Are Our Games Alive?

Fri, 29 May 2009 14:45:15 EDT

By John Gaudiosi More »

Uncharted 2 Enemies A Little Smarter, A Little More Agile

Luke Plunkett — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 03:30:00 EST

Uncharted 2 is a sequel, so things are being tweaked, things are being added, things are being improved. One area Naughty Dog are working on is enemy AI, particularly how it reacts to Nathan's presence. More »

Valve Wants To Look At Your Brains

Stuart Houghton — Fri, 21 Nov 2008 17:20:00 EST

Let's clear this up - the creatures in Left 4 Dead are NOT after your brains. They aren't zombies, they are the infected. Valve Software though? They totally want to have a root around inside your gray cells. More »

EKI One Middleware To Bring Mixed Emotions

Stuart Houghton — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:30:00 EDT

Emotional attachment is a rare quality in video games. It takes a particular combination of good writing and good design to draw you in to a character's world and stop you seeing an avatar as just another bunch of pixels. More »

The Problems With Pathfinding

Maggie Greene — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 13:30:00 EDT

Paul Tozour has put up an entertaining video over at the Game/AI blog on the problem of pathfinding - which could probably otherwise be known as 'Wait a minute, that enemy has wings but is getting hung up on a ledge it's flying above. What?'. Along with the video, he's also written a somewhat lengthy treatise on pathfinding in games using waypoints, which he argues are obsolete — and offers some potential solutions. But what about those who say, 'Well, it worked just fine for us in our last game.' Tozour has this to say: More »

Bethesda Talks Fallout 3's Advancements

Leigh Alexander — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:40:00 EDT

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Gamasutra currently has an in-depth interview with Bethesda marketing VP Pete Hines all about Fallout 3 and just how the team plans to meet sky-high expectations for the game. Hines says that while you can't please 'em all, they try to think of the fans as much as they can: More »

On Academic and Industry Collaboration

Maggie Greene — Sat, 22 Dec 2007 15:00:00 EST

It frequently seems, when looking at the academic research side of things and the 'real world' applications, that never the twain shall meet - academics are notorious for floating about in their own little world (it's practically part of the job description some days ...), while everyone else wants to know how academic research can be applied to real world situations. There's an interesting post up on Game/AI - especially the comments - talking about the problems of bridging the industry/academic gap in gaming. Are we all too beholden to our institutional obligations? Is there any way to bridge the gap? Will academics ever get their heads out of the theoretical clouds? Will designers ever start thinking academics have something to offer beside star gazing? More »

Hollywood Sob Story, Lots of AI Games Were Canned

Mark Wilson — Tue, 23 Oct 2007 15:40:27 EDT

After we heard about some of the games that could have been earlier today, a developer let us know a little more about what ever happened to that AI game—you know, a game based upon the that movie by Spielberg starring the dead-people-seeing prodigy.

Regarding AI from Microsoft, they actually had 6 different titles in development based on the AI property. You name the genre, there was a game for it: car racing, fighting, adventure, party game, etc. I was working on an adventure/platformer game...then the movie came out. All the titles were quickly scuttled.

My guess is that this was for the good of the consumer. And while we hate to see any game canceled and the repercussions on studio employees, there is something moderately fulfilling in knowing that, every once in a while, Hollywood, just assuming gamers will want their glorious IP and wondrous narrative digitized, suffers a nice kick in the nuts. More »

Bungie Trades Robots for Humans

Kim Phu — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 12:40:00 EDT

Today's Onion-esque story comes by way of humor tech site The BBSpot, which "reports" that Bungie has decided to do what most companies these days like to do when they want to do things better and cheaper - outsource the problem to another country. The company will be recruiting people all over the world to play Halo 3 instead of spending the money to get programmers to redesign the AI to their liking. More »

The Darkness Not So AI

Brian Crecente — Thu, 11 May 2006 15:32:56 EDT

I sat in on a developer demonstration of The Darkness a little while ago. More »

Perfect Dark Zero Gets New AI

Brian Crecente — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 12:00:27 EDT

Microsoft sends word that an update for Perfect Dark Zero is coming that will offer up a bunch of new bot personalities to spice up your play. More »