Opponents can be done reasonably well with even the simple AI we have now. The killer app for gaming would be AI characters who can respond meaningfully to the player talking to them, at the level of actually generating new prewritten game plot quality responses based on the stuff the player comes up with during the game.
This is quite different from chatbots and their ilk, I’m thinking of complex, multiagent player-instigated plots such as the player convincing AI NPC A to disguise itself as AI NPC B to fool AI NPC C who is expecting to interact with B, all without the game developer having anticipated that this can be done and without the player feeling like they have gone from playing a story game to hacking AI code.
So I do see a case here. The game industry has thus far been very conservative about weird AI techniques, but since cutting edge visuals seem to be approaching diminishing returns, there could be room for a gamedev enterprise going for something very different. The big problem is that when sorta-there visuals can be pretty impressive, sorta there general NPC AI will probably look quite weird and stupid in a game plot.
Opponents can be done reasonably well with even the simple AI we have now.
Not for games like Civilization they can’t. Especially not if they’re also supposed to deal with mods that add entirely new features.
Some EURISKO-type engine that could play a lot of games against itself and then come up with good strategies (and which could be rerun after each rules change) would be a huge step forward.
Opponents can be done reasonably well with even the simple AI we have now. The killer app for gaming would be AI characters who can respond meaningfully to the player talking to them, at the level of actually generating new prewritten game plot quality responses based on the stuff the player comes up with during the game.
This is quite different from chatbots and their ilk, I’m thinking of complex, multiagent player-instigated plots such as the player convincing AI NPC A to disguise itself as AI NPC B to fool AI NPC C who is expecting to interact with B, all without the game developer having anticipated that this can be done and without the player feeling like they have gone from playing a story game to hacking AI code.
So I do see a case here. The game industry has thus far been very conservative about weird AI techniques, but since cutting edge visuals seem to be approaching diminishing returns, there could be room for a gamedev enterprise going for something very different. The big problem is that when sorta-there visuals can be pretty impressive, sorta there general NPC AI will probably look quite weird and stupid in a game plot.
Not for games like Civilization they can’t. Especially not if they’re also supposed to deal with mods that add entirely new features.
Some EURISKO-type engine that could play a lot of games against itself and then come up with good strategies (and which could be rerun after each rules change) would be a huge step forward.
This is what I was trying to say but much better.