Re:No Man’s Sky’s biggest thematic problem, explained in fou...
by jerf on Friday August 12, 2016 @02:35PM
(#12277780)
"The underlying creature model appears to have been somewhat simplistic. Creature needs were manually coded with first order logic. Not sure how training was actually done, but it was unlikely to be too complicated."
Black and White was one of the reasons I tried to carefully write that so it was clear that not all the things I listed were "bad". What I recall is that Black and White failed its promises; the creature is nowhere near as smart as what was promised. But many people still had fun with the game that resulted.
I find the failures of AI are often quite entertaining; they have a different character of failure than other sorts. I also frequently enjoy the errors that word-based AI makes, because there's often some bizarre, twisted sense behind it that our brains can pick up on and enjoy. Markov Chain babble generators are the simplest example of that, but the serious work can generate a lot of great stuff too.
I still have fond memories of my brother trying to teach the creature to pick up rocks, and then throw them. The intention was to bombard the other villages.
Training it to pick up was easy. Leash it, pick up the rock in front of it, repeat. Put the rock next to it. Did it pick it up? If so, pet it. Repeat.
Getting it to throw the rock was more involved. Even after watching my brother doing it, the creature would pick up the rock, then put it down again. He must have spent at least half an hour trying.
Then, all of a sudden, the creature starts throwing rocks! Success! Well, except that it was also picking up feces. And throwing them. And picking up friendly villagers, and throwing them. Repeatedly.
That was the funniest thing I've seen in a game, by far. That, and watching my brother scolding the creature for the behavior.
The underlying creature model appears to have been somewhat simplistic. Creature needs were manually coded with first order logic. Not sure how training was actually done, but it was unlikely to be too complicated.
Now, more than a decade later, one should expect one "creature" that's even more advanced, specially considering the renewed interest in AI. Or that the creatures that one encounters in an RPG to be at least as advanced as the B&W one. Instead, they are not actually much more advanced than Pacman ghosts, no matter how pretty they look.