This is about game AIs, which are definitely interesting. But for the most part they overlap very little with what most people think of as AI.<p>In undergrad (mid 2000s) I partially specialized in both computer graphics and machine learning, and took a video game class to try combining these skills. I have two big memories from this time that stuck with me. The first is the time a dev on Civilization 1 visited our class. He spoke about the "AI" of civilization, which he revealed to be a simple random number generator. He told us people often thought it was far more complex, but that's really all there was to it.<p>The second memory is when we actually built a 3d engine + game from scratch. Every week we had to add a new feature, so one week I obviously took on the AI. My partner and I were doing a soccer-style game, and I had grand visions of implementing a sophisticated AI using what I'd been learning in my other classes, like SVMs and neural networks. I started doing research, and was shocked to learn that no video games at the time did any of this. I learned that computers at the time weren't really capable of running several versions of an ML algorithm simultaneously (one per agent) while dealing with everything else - and more importantly that there was little need. I ended up spending a couple days building out a basic state machine, and it worked. Even the professor thought we added incredible intelligence to the players, who in reality were just following ~10 rules like "if player in defense mode: move towards the midpoint between the ball and the goal while keeping some distance between other players".<p>My main take-away from that class is that there was little need for actual AI in video games, and that I should pursue a different career path :/
This seems really out of date. I put together a list of ML books not too long ago<p><a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12900448" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12900448</a>
I am half-joking here, but since they have a "related reading" section with more "philosophical" works, they really should include "Godel, Escher, Bach"
Many of the books seem older than 10 years (also in the general exams list[1]). Are the (seemingly) vast advancements in the last years still based on the same principles? (Speaking as a complete ML noob.)<p>[1]: <a href="http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin//generals/general_exams.html" rel="nofollow">http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~jorkin//generals/general_exams....</a>
Steve Grand's other book "Growing up with Lucy: How to Build an Android in Twenty Easy Steps" should also be included in this list.<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Lucy-Android-Twenty/dp/0753818051" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Growing-Up-Lucy-Android-Twenty/dp/075...</a>
When this was discussed previously, I made an in-depth comment on it there, which I'll reference again here: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8851408" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8851408</a>