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Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

togelius.blogspot.com

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Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#41

Post by gnaritas »

bitwize wrote: post #2

I don't think building an AI is the most important task on our plate. We still have those disease, hunger, poverty, and war problems to contend with. If building an AI helps us solve those, then sure, let's build the AI. But I don't think strong AI is necessary to gain traction on the problems that confront the sapient beings we already have around.

> I don't think building an AI is the most important task on our plate

It's never a good idea to tell other people what they should be putting their efforts into. There's isn't just one valid task for everyone to focus on; if you aren't interested in the AI problem it doesn't mean others aren't, and solving any problem that needs solved is a valid thing to do regardless of where on the priority list you might think the problem lies.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#42

Post by mattthebaker »

jonmrodriguez wrote: post #6
bitwize wrote: post #2

I don't think building an AI is the most important task on our plate. We still have those disease, hunger, poverty, and war problems to contend with. If building an AI helps us solve those, then sure, let's build the AI. But I don't think strong AI is necessary to gain traction on the problems that confront the sapient beings we already have around.

Along similar lines, since AI is considered to be potentially dangerous, by figures from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, I would rather our civilization never open this pandora's box. We can solve Earth's problems and even spread to the stars without AI. We can invent fusion reactors and thus nearly free energy without AI. We can engineer biological immortality into our very genes without AI. Why risk playing with a lo…

If you don't, someone else will.

Why risk permanent climate damage from an unlimited heat source I.e. Fusion?

Why risk severe overpopulation due to immortality?

There are many shades of gray between machine learning and sky net. There is a lot for civilization to gain in between.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#43

Post by gnaritas »

bitwize wrote: post #24
deelowe wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

uggh. As if all the AI programmers out there would instantly join doctors without borders if they decided to stop working tomorrow. These sorts of arguments make no sense to me.

Er, "not the most important" is not the same as "not worthwhile" or "not really freaking cool". But when you open an essay with "the most important task for us humans to achieve is..." you're imposing an order on tasks and a ranking for your stated task at the top of that order. I'm challenging the ranking that puts building strong AI at the top.

Well lets look at that challenge directly then. Solving the AI problem means we can point AI at any other problem and solve it much faster; AI is a meta achievement and if it's within reach, a solid can be made that it's the most productive problem to solve. It might take an AI to find a solution to the climate problem.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#44

Post by jarboot »

proc0 wrote: post #18

Very interesting read, and I always knew about this being an avid gamer since as far as I can remember. It always intrigued me how a computer can play against a human, and as games got more sophisticated, interacting with AI's got more and more human-like. Aside from using them as benchmarks, they way games are capable of simulating a world will probably be key in creating a true AGI. In the comment section of the ar…

If a AI could understand goals, actors, terrain, and navigation in a RPG environment like TES or Fallout, it could navigate our environment pretty well and do tasks akin to the game's quests. It's still a long ways off, but I'm already imagining a future of literal capitalist robots doing chores for points.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#45

Post by navbaker »

nlawalker wrote: post #35
fitzwatermellow wrote: post #29

Great summary of current state of the art with links to interesting projects: GVG-AI, VGDL... Videos games are also essential for AI pedagogy. Creating Pac-Man agents in Stanford's AI class is a great example. Most players can barely get a "strawberry" but to see a trained agent mimicking human expert level play is eye-opening. Quick reminder: Global Game Jam 2016 starts Jan. 29 and NYU is hosting its annual jam! htt…

To anyone who's never done the Pacman projects: I highly recommend them[1]. They are an absolute blast and incredibly satisfying. Plus, if you don't know Python, they are a great way to learn. The course I took used the Norvig text[2] as a textbook, which I also recommend. [1] http://ai.berkeley.edu/project_overview.html . See the "Lectures" link at the top for all the course videos/slides. [2] http://www.amazon.com/…

I'll second the recommendation for Norvig and Russell's text. It's the first textbook I've ever actually wanted to sit down and read outside of assignments.

-edit for spelling

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#46

Post by gnaritas »

jonmrodriguez wrote: post #6
bitwize wrote: post #2

I don't think building an AI is the most important task on our plate. We still have those disease, hunger, poverty, and war problems to contend with. If building an AI helps us solve those, then sure, let's build the AI. But I don't think strong AI is necessary to gain traction on the problems that confront the sapient beings we already have around.

Along similar lines, since AI is considered to be potentially dangerous, by figures from Elon Musk to Stephen Hawking, I would rather our civilization never open this pandora's box. We can solve Earth's problems and even spread to the stars without AI. We can invent fusion reactors and thus nearly free energy without AI. We can engineer biological immortality into our very genes without AI. Why risk playing with a lo…

It's not something we're going to be able to avoid; once we figure out how brains work and how to emulate them in software, you're never going to prevent people from building them, how are you going to know what I'm programming? It's not really feasible to halt technological progress, you simply have to learn to deal with the consequences.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#47

Post by gnaritas »

purpled_haze wrote: post #23
coderdude wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

FPS games are a great playground for learning, regardless of the killing. If you can teach an AI to hunt, kill, and avoid being killed, then you've got something interesting on your hands. Once you have the system in place that can learn how to do those things, you don't have to keep it training on a violent game. You can switch it to Minecraft. We don't care if AI kills zombies.

> If you can teach an AI to hunt, kill, and avoid being killed... then you've taught an AI to be a predator.

To figure out how to build it, then you shut it down and dump it and train a new instance on whatever environment you want. AI's are just computer programs, you can wipe their data anytime you like.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#48

Post by yabun »

tinalumfoil wrote: post #40
mathgeek wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When you think about the difficulties of such a loosely defined problem, it's hard to buy into the real-world fears of AI. My belief is that one day, in the not too distant future, we'll be saying that it's hard to believe we ever considered such things difficult for AI. Consider that an AI can literally keep "reloading the last save file" indefinitely and simply try different commands until it finds one that advan…

> Consider that an AI can literally keep "reloading the last save file" indefinitely and simply try different commands until it finds one that advances the game successfully. A little bit of guided learning to confirm that its doing well, and suddenly you've got an AI that plays Skyrim. And if you give a monkey a typewriter he will eventually write the complete works of shakespeare and if you play the powerball enoug…

The core difference with AI is that it is adaptable. Sure, flailing around and happening to do something useful isn't clever, but if we can reinforce useful behaviours something more closely resembling intelligence can emerge.

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#49

Post by mankash666 »

"The most important thing for humanity to do right now is to invent true artificial intelligence"

Maybe the article makes some valid scientific points, but I simply cannot go past this unscientific opening claim to a purportedly scientific article. Not just me, no peer-review journal will accept such frivolity. Passing on the article and hoping for better scientific writing in the future!

Re: Video games are essential for inventing artificial intelligence

#50

Post by Joof »

niels_olson wrote: post #15
togelius wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that progress on general AI can solve a lot of the problems we are facing. To take an obvious and down-to-earth example, let's say we "solve" logistics in the sense that we can transport things wherever we want, timely and cheaply. That would help us with a lot of the problems we are facing, such as hunger. And for solving logistics we essentially need the same skills we need as for solving game-playing.

Yeah, this is a bit like saying we don't need to go to Mars because we should solve poverty first. Solving the problems of going to Mars will solve a lot of other problems and create a lot of industries along the way. Solving AI will solve a lot of other problems and create a lot of industries along the way. A great deal of poverty is a mismatch between bodies and skills needed in the workforce. We haven't needed dit…

Poverty is a fun issue because (typically) solving poverty has resulted in greater population and thus trends towards poverty.

Less true in modern nations, but its still generally true.

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