Video Games have been around since the mid-twentieth century, but Atari’s “Pong” in 1972 was a game changer! Literally. Today, 50 years on, video games are a massive global industry transcending genres and platforms, including consoles, PCs, mobile devices, and virtual reality systems. AI took off around the same time as Video Games with Researchers like Alan Turing laying the groundwork. Today it encompasses machine learning and neural networks.
The intersection between Video games and Artificial Intelligence (AI) early on was rule-based. Then in 2000, Machine learning techniques, including neural networks, began to be applied in game AI. Neural networks enabled more adaptive and learning-based behaviours in NPC (non-player character) opponents. Today, Deep learning, a subset of machine learning, has become a dominant force. AlphaGo is a prime example of this.
Today AI is being used in game development for procedural content generation, language processing for dialogue systems, and more immersive and adaptive gaming experiences based on player behaviour prediction and response, and the creation of realistic characters through techniques like deepfake technology.
AI has made Video games complex and realistic, generating interest and addiction because of the increasing level of challenge. AI-generated algorithms and models are now capable of achieving, if not superhuman performance, at least human performance in games like Go, Chess, etc., not the pure machine performance of yore.
Video Games, by the very nature of their basis, are a fertile real-time data generator and testing bed for neural networks and self-correcting algorithms, as machines play with real humans, interacting with them, studying, and responding to their every move by learning on the go. DeepMind, a Google-owned research lab, using video games to create AI algorithms that triumph over human champions in games like Go and StarCraft II is a prime example of this.
Then there is the AI influence in the Hardware that powers game consoles and display systems – the chips and the graphics cards!
According to ExpressVPN, games present an ideal testing ground for algorithms like NEAT. It quotes Kenneth Stanley, the former team leader of OpenAI’s Open-Endedness Team (which helps develop self-learning AI that can adapt to new tasks and environments) as saying, “Unlike costly robotic hardware, games require fewer resources and allow for rapid AI experimentation without real-world risks”.
This influential intersection is underscored by studies. A study, published in the journal Nature in 2021, found that AI models trained on video game data can learn to solve complex problems more quickly and efficiently than AI models trained on traditional datasets.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03662-5 while another study by researchers at OpenAI found that AI models trained on video game data can learn to perform complex tasks, such as playing video games at a superhuman level, without any explicit instructions.
This obvious synergy between video games and AI represents a symbiotic and indeed a catalytic relationship that will propel innovation and growth. It is helping refine algorithms and focus hardware. One will feed off the other, pushing technology to evolve and this evolved technology will produce even better options for game developers and consumers. Given their confluence, the influence of Video Games on AI will only continue to sharpen and deepen, giving rise to unfathomable possibilities!
Photo by Andrea De Santis on Unsplash
