AI Taught How To Play Ms. Pac-Man 167
trogador writes with the news that researchers are working to teach AIs how to play games as an exercise in reinforced learning. Software constructs have been taught to play games like chess and checkers since the 50s, but the Department of Information Systems at Eotvos University in Hungary is working to adapt that thinking to more modern titles. Besides Ms. Pac-Man, game like Tetris and Baldur's Gate assist these programs in mapping different behaviors onto their artificial test subjects. "Szita and Lorincz chose Ms. Pac-Man for their study because the game enabled them to test a variety of teaching methods. In the original Pac-Man, released in 1979, players must eat dots, avoid being eaten by four ghosts, and score big points by eating flashing ghosts. Therefore, a player's movements depend heavily on the movements of ghosts. However, the ghosts' routes are deterministic, enabling players to find patterns and predict future movements. In Ms. Pac-Man, on the other hand, the ghosts' routes are randomized, so that players can't figure out an optimal action sequence in advance."
"AI"s tend to be overhyped (Score:4, Interesting)
Perfect Game? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:"AI"s tend to be overhyped (Score:5, Interesting)
Angband is more complex than Pacman (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Perfect Game? (Score:3, Interesting)
If you're ever near Weirs Beach, New Hampshire, be sure to visit Funspot--great arcade.
I'm a pretty good Ms. Pac Man player, and I consider my game a failure if I don't get the maximum of 14600 points on the first board. If the best the AI could do is averaging 8186 points per game, I think we're still pretty far from Skynet taking over.