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Okay who really thought this was a good idea: Can you say Skynet?

July 15, 2011, 1:32 PM PDT

Takeaway: Should we really be teaching computers how to systematically take over the world using the well-known explore, expand, exploit, and exterminate Civilization method?

According to an article over on ExtremeTech:

“The MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence lab has a computer that now plays Civilization all by itself - and it wins nearly 80% of the time.”

So basically, following the 4X theory of Civilization games, the good folks at MIT have taught a computer how to:

Explore its surroundings
Expand its influence
Exploit resources, and
Exterminate the competition

Am I the only one who thinks this may be a bad idea?

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About Mark Kaelin

Mark Kaelin is a CBS Interactive Senior Editor for TechRepublic. He is the host for the Microsoft Windows blog, Microsoft Office blog, and Google in the Enterprise blog.

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2 Votes

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I don't see the problem

Palmetto_CharlieSpencer 15th Jul

Humans are far less predictable than computer games.

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2 Votes

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I think you have something there.

seanferd 15th Jul

There are plenty of predictable ones I don't much care to see with any sort of power, either.

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0 Votes

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I think the point is

Jtempys 3rd Aug

That the computer was playing a game it was not hosting itself, much like Deep Blue or the like, but it is able to create its own Game Theory Trees based on language rather than a data matrix.

It would be more like creating bots on machines connecting to the hosted computer rather than difficulty sliders in the hosted game. Bots that you could read assumptions about the game environment, and then define conditionals.

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0 Votes

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Matt The Gamer Chimes in!

suziep12@... Updated - 24th Jul

"Does anyone have any more information on this, preferably from the creators? I'd love to know what kind of strategy the computer uses, what sort of mix of attack and defense it uses. Also, is this similar to the principles that chess computers use where they analyse every single move they can before moving?"

i remember once there was an old FPS game where you could customise the behavior of the AI bots.. for shits and giggles one time I basically turned every slider on it up to maximum performance then dueled it to see what would happe
n
it was basically 100% impossible to fight against
it would pick sniper weapons, sit in one area and instantly kill you the literal moment you turned the corner
like no delay whatsoever, just immediatley blows your head off from miles away the very moment you're visible to it

i dunno how relevant fps bots are to civilisation XP generally the AI in games like that is ratcheted up or down by a cheat method rather than hard abilities
like they'll be given extra resources that the player cant see, or penalised them if they're on easy mode
the AI is no different between difficulties but it's just a handicap essentially
which is cheap coding if you ask me but I digress XP

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Yours

santeewelding 24th Jul

Is another case of distinguishing how we are not without having determined how we are.

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