Artificial Intelligence

[xham6690]

Some news and youtube video strongly asserts that Artificial Intelligence is growing in capability at an exponential pace.

If that is true, why does game AI s u c k so intensely?

I think devs sometimes lease a graphics engine for their game to use.

If game AI is expensive and difficult to write code for, why isn't there a company that does nothing but write game AI and lease it out?

Post Script:

Only a few minutes after posting this topic, it is FLOODED with responses.

Clearly, a lot of techno geeks inhabit the forums, and that's not meant to be derogatory.

However, is there any point to discussing the geek details of the current state of thing or why it CANNOT be as it should?

Why not focus on what it should do, and how to make it work.

For example, in a real war, a losing enemy is unlikely to keep suicidal attacking, yet this is how every AI enemy I've encountered behaves, no option for retreat or surrender. I just want AI that makes enemies behave realistically and credibly. Is that really so difficult?

[Your_White_Knight]

Originally posted by xham6690:

Artificial Intelligence

Some news and youtube video strongly asserts that Artificial Intelligence is growing in capability at an exponential pace.

If that is true, why does game AI s u c k so intensely?

I think devs sometimes lease a graphics engine for their game to use.

If game AI is expensive and difficult to write code for, why isn't there a company that does nothing but write game AI and lease it out?

That's because there's "AI" and there's "Game AI"

"AI" can be a computer that can beat a human chess master... like Deep Blue. But a video game can only be so big and use up only so much of your computer possessor before it bogs down your computer to the point the game can't be played... the two are as different as night and day.

https://youtu.be/wh9kpe1Dn8s

It's like trying to compare your cell phone calculator with the computers at NASA...

[Abaddon the Despoiler]

A good AI on some games like Tekken would make it impossible for a human to win.

[Kamiyama]

Not many games use neural network based AI. For example Yandere Girlfriend Simulator uses ChatGPT which uses a neural network. The chess AI AlphaZero also uses a neural network.

AlphaZero is a grandmaster level chess player and has beaten grandmaster level players.

ChatGPT did pass a turing test, which just means it appeared to talk like a human in a conversation and fooled the person running the test.

I'm not aware of any other games that used neural network based AI but I would love to see new games utilize this type of AI.

AI can do more than just play against you or talk to you. Neural network based AI could be used for procedural generation in games. For instance a open world RPG which instead of using seeds it uses an AI like this which generates the terrain, and cities, and NPC's, and quests, and does it all on the fly. So there could be no end to the world. You keep moving in one direction and it generates chunk after chunk like Minecraft. An endless RPG the only limitation is the space available on your computer.

[xham6690]

Originally posted by Your_White_Knight:

Originally posted by xham6690:

Artificial Intelligence

Some news and youtube video strongly asserts that Artificial Intelligence is growing in capability at an exponential pace.

If that is true, why does game AI s u c k so intensely?

I think devs sometimes lease a graphics engine for their game to use.

If game AI is expensive and difficult to write code for, why isn't there a company that does nothing but write game AI and lease it out?

That's because there's "AI" and there's "Game AI"

"AI" can be a computer that can beat a human chess master... like Deep Blue. But a video game can only be so big and use up only so much of your computer possessor before it bogs down your computer to the point the game can't be played... the two are as different as night and day.

https://youtu.be/wh9kpe1Dn8s

It's like trying to compare your cell phone calculator with the computers at NASA...

Ok. I was under the impression that it's possible to play a game that relies on a server elsewhere to provide the necessary horsepower to function? Is that incorrect?

[Z i o ⚡]

Game AI doesn't use what things like ChatGPT are using unless the game makes use of it and requires your connection with it. ChatGPT runs on computer servers. I even just asked.

[Kamiyama]

A lot of strategy games have terrible AI that doesn't even play the game the same way the player does. For instance instead of following the same recruitment rules for units they just spawn X number of units each turn, maybe random units but it won't even calculate resource requirements.

No respect for unit caps, or maintenance costs, or sometimes even tech research.

And a lot of the times good players will be aware of this, but dedicated fanboys of that game will wear rose-tinted glasses and will think you're a whiner if you complain about it. Then they think they're better than you because they "can handle the AI" when that's not the issue. What you want an even playing field with a good AI that plays the game strategically instead of trying to steamroll you with numbers it pulls out of its butt.

I went through this with Shogun 2. The AI has no concept of koku. As a result burning the AI players farms does literally nothing. They don't pay maintenance costs and can field doomstacks of units on land, with doomstacks of naval units at sea, and still spam monks and ninjas who will perform actions every turn (which cost koku) and - the worst part - they build full-size castles in every province and never bother to upgrade the farms. Castles cost food. If players did this their population would starve to death.

It's so absolutely lopsided that it's obvious the AI is a cheating bastard to anyone with even minimal skill at 4X games. But don't tell that to the fanboys. "You must suck at video games. I can destroy the AI on impossible difficulty! huhuhuhuhuhu"

[Chimp Factory [M04]]

Originally posted by xham6690:

Some news and youtube video strongly asserts that Artificial Intelligence is growing in capability at an exponential pace.

If that is true, why does game AI s u c k so intensely?

I think devs sometimes lease a graphics engine for their game to use.

If game AI is expensive and difficult to write code for, why isn't there a company that does nothing but write game AI and lease it out?

Hardware, software and training limits.

Having a 'proper' AI needs a bit of power and space to operate. Like for the image generation AI some people can run it using local hardware and it takes a while in comparison to the more powerful and special computers they have in a central location.

Software development to make best use of hardware is also the issue; and licencing is an issue for costs. The good stuff will be expensive

And finally the training; the model needs to understand the game, and its contents. Would be interesting to see a full game AI, but even just a dialogue generator AI it still needs to understand what is going on around it for topics, tone ect.

[Devsman]

1. Because it's not even remotely the same technology. Modern buzzword AI is a type of "machine learning", which is another buzzword, which (as an oversimplified explanation) process an absurd amount of data iteratively adjusting some parameters to make better guesses as it goes. Video game AI is literally just following some hard-coded instructions.

2. Because machine learning AIs would kick your ass, every time, and you would hate them. The last time anybody beat the world's best AI at chess was 18 years ago.

3. Because enemies are obstacles and not opponents. The most sophisticated video game AIs of all time happened in a PS2 game. And people hated it. It's not like we don't have the ability to improve them beyond that level--it's just a colossally bad idea.

[Reggaejunkiedrew]

It will, it's just too soon. GPT4 only just came out, games take years to make. It'll be used both for AI as well as for graphics, voice acting, music, everything.

Originally posted by Z i o ⚡:

Game AI doesn't use what things like ChatGPT are using unless the game makes use of it and requires your connection with it. ChatGPT runs on computer servers. I even just asked.

There are smaller AI you can run on an older rig even that aren't smart as gpt4 or 3.5, but are getting smarter and less performance heavy really fast. Seems likely that games will be able to run the AI locally to produce dynamic conversations with pretty good results before long, though youll likely need a beefy CPU to be running this while also doing everything else

[Kamiyama]

I have run stable diffusion on my PC to generate images. So yes neural network based AI can run on your local machine. It doesn't need server hardware however server hardware will probably run it faster in most cases.

[xham6690]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

A lot of strategy games have terrible AI that doesn't even play the game the same way the player does. For instance instead of following the same recruitment rules for units they just spawn X number of units each turn, maybe random units but it won't even calculate resource requirements.

No respect for unit caps, or maintenance costs, or sometimes even tech research.

And a lot of the times good players will be aware of this, but dedicated fanboys of that game will wear rose-tinted glasses and will think you're a whiner if you complain about it. Then they think they're better than you because they "can handle the AI" when that's not the issue. What you want an even playing field with a good AI that plays the game strategically instead of trying to steamroll you with numbers it pulls out of its butt.

I went through this with Shogun 2. The AI has no concept of koku. As a result burning the AI players farms does literally nothing. They don't pay maintenance costs and can field doomstacks of units on land, with doomstacks of naval units at sea, and still spam monks and ninjas who will perform actions every turn (which cost koku) and - the worst part - they build full-size castles in every province and never bother to upgrade the farms. Castles cost food. If players did this their population would starve to death.

It's so absolutely lopsided that it's obvious the AI is a cheating bastard to anyone with even minimal skill at 4X games. But don't tell that to the fanboys. "You must suck at video games. I can destroy the AI on impossible difficulty! huhuhuhuhuhu"

Yes, this is precisely what I am referring to.

I find it difficult to believe that developers cannot see that there is a huge untapped market, a lot of profit to be made, if they altered game design a little.

Al that money poured into graphics and advertising. Why not more into decent AI?

[Fajita Jim]

Originally posted by Kamiyama:

I have run stable diffusion on my PC to generate images. So yes neural network based AI can run on your local machine. It doesn't need server hardware however server hardware will probably run it faster in most cases.

The secret to that is in your MODELS folder. Those cpkt files are generate on large neural networks, and do the heavy lifting for you. You'll see the the weights from these files loading in your CMD window when you first run the program.

So no, not really.

[xham6690]

Originally posted by Midori:

Originally posted by Devsman's Comet:

2. Because machine learning AIs would kick your ass, every time, and you would hate them. The last time anybody beat the world's best AI at chess was 18 years ago.

I'm not really sure I agree with that, as long as you give the AI opponent the same amount of information as the player has, without letting them see through walls, or read the inputs of the player, I think it could actually make a convincing middle-ground where it seems like an actual player, being susceptible to mind-games, which is what current input-reading AIs are notoriously impervious to.

Originally posted by xham6690:

I was under the impression that it's possible to play a game that relies on a server elsewhere to provide the necessary horsepower to function? Is that incorrect?

You can but it's slow, way too slow to give tactical awareness to an enemy in an action game.

Turn based games like chess are possible, and games where the AI is used to converse with an NPC or something are possible, but anything that requires constant info from an AI model is just too taxing for now. I never wanna be on the naysayer side when it comes to AI so it'll probably be a thing sooner than later though :P

Thank you for the response. Usually, when I ask questions like this, I get a bunch of arrogant p ric ks jumping in yelling "that's impossible!"

Now, they're arrogant because they're experienced and knowledgeable. However, I always say, "Just because YOU don't know how to to it , that does not mean it cannot be done."
Then, pretty much, I get a forum ban, because mods are all sh itbags who protect a clique rather than objectively enforce a TOS.


Yes, you list something that infuriates me in almost every game: enemies having information that it would be literally impossible for them to have, such as seeing through walls or knowing the contents of my inventory. That crap infuriates me.

Unfortunately the only alternative is to play against humans, and in my opinion 99 percent of people are a ss holes.

[xham6690]

Originally posted by Devsman's Comet:

1. Because it's not even remotely the same technology. Modern buzzword AI is a type of "machine learning", which is another buzzword, which (as an oversimplified explanation) process an absurd amount of data iteratively adjusting some parameters to make better guesses as it goes. Video game AI is literally just following some hard-coded instructions.

2. Because machine learning AIs would kick your ass, every time, and you would hate them. The last time anybody beat the world's best AI at chess was 18 years ago.

3. Because enemies are obstacles and not opponents. The most sophisticated video game AIs of all time happened in a PS2 game. And people hated it. It's not like we don't have the ability to improve them beyond that level--it's just a colossally bad idea.

I think we have different ideas of "better" here. Better to me would be enemies that behave plausibly and realistically.

In a real war, there is a good chance that an enemy that is clearly losing will retreat. Most games have literally suicidal AI that keeps coming regardless. That's just one example of what I mean.

[xham6690]

Originally posted by Midori:

What game's AI makes you ask this?

Generally, video game AI is going to be running constantly throughout the game on every frame, and if there's more than one character, then doubly, so the code had better be efficient.

Therefore, video game AI will likely remain rather simple until querying GBs of data on every frame to handle the AI becomes a simple task for hardware.

The revolutionary hardware models we've come to know lately tend to always have 3 digit VRAM requirements.

Well, recently Warhammer BattleSector. It eventually became clear that the AI can't think, it just relies on literally unlimited reinforcements. I would have never purchased the game if I knew the devs had been that dishonest / lazy.