Right-- but often an NPC is merely scenery or traffic, in the sense that their behavior does not compete with your interests. What I found interesting about the football example is that the random strategy of the NPC-oach both suggested a deeper intelligence AND proved to be an apparently effective opponent.

Beyond reinforcing our tendency to project, as you say, a personal history on random behavior, it also highlights what a few other people have commented: that in many non-cooperative situations a committed random strategy is extremely effective, and perhaps more effective than a biased, seemingly "rational" strategy. (For another example, I believe Henrich's "The Secret Of Our Success" discusses the possible adaptive benefits of divination as a generator for random strategies among early societies.)

It's how in Rock Paper Scissors you can probably do better against a smart opponent by playing randomly than by trying to trick them. At least they can't get in your head, because there's nothing there. You won't do better than chance, but at least you can't do much worse.

So, use a random strategy and measure the entropy of your opponent's behavior. And modify accordingly, as needed.

A lot of the best ml right now is effectively about making better conditional probability distributions. You always get random output, but skewed according to the circumstances, and sharp according to confidence in the result.

I'm not sure what the term for it is, but humans have an uncanny ability to ascribe meaning to pure randomness. I'm not surprised a random AI can appear smart.

When your audio player picks these random tracks https://i.imgur.com/QRoGQRy.png (example from earlier in the day) you start believing in a Higher Power..

Unless you consider that randomness, whatever source, is some form of intelligence. (I am only half-joking here).