The Elder Scrolls 4 – Oblivion is one of the best and easily the most technically advanced game that I’d played (I’d played it a long while back). One thing in particular that surprised me was the AI. I sometimes used to follow around NPC to see where he goes and the AI was remarkably lifelike, and I stumbled across an interview with the developers of bethesda and the radiant AI, and how the spoke of the AI, which’d gotten so complicated so that the following disturbing situations arose:
1. One character was given a rake and the goal “rake leaves”; another was given a broom and the goal “sweep paths,” and this worked smoothly. Then they swapped the items, so that the raker was given a broom and the sweeper was given the rake. In the end, one of them killed the other so he could get the proper item. 2. In another test, a minotaur was given a task of protecting a unicorn. However, the Minotaur repeatedly tried to kill the unicorn because he was set to be an aggressive creature. 3. In one Dark Brotherhood quest, the player can meet up with a shady merchant who sells skooma, an in-game drug. During testing, the NPC would be dead when the player got to him. The reason was that NPCs from the local skooma den were trying to get their fix, did not have any money, and so were killing the merchant to get it. 4. While testing to confirm that the physics models for a magical item known as the “Skull of Corruption,” which creates an evil copy of the character/monster it is used on, were working properly, a tester dropped the item on the ground. An NPC immediately picked it up and used it on the player character, creating a copy of him that proceeded to kill every NPC in sight. 5. In one test, after a guard became hungry and left his post in search of food, the other guards followed to arrest him. The town people looted the town shops, due to lack of guards. Bethesda worked to fix these issues, balancing an NPC’s needs against his penchant for destruction so that the game world still functions in a usable fashion. In-game there are over 1,000 different NPCs, not including randomly spawned monsters and bandits. The result is that the AI in the release version is much reduced, only featuring NPC schedules.
Apparently, the developers did not mean for this to happen, and the final version had to be dumbed down but still I found some disturbing AI.
Now this makes me question: “If a game AI can go out of hand, if we dabble with real AI, and things can really go out of hand.” What this might mean is that the terminator type of story might not be so far away after all.
So, the very Radiant AI became a scheduling program. And how much money did they spend developing it?
Very interesting! That is exactly how we are without a concience or the fear of God. I think the error Bethesda’s developers made was in believing that morality is a social construct when it is actually foundational to the fabric of life.
Yeah, that’s the problem, Bethesda forgot to set the god variable. I can’t possibly have anything to do with, say the limited knowledge we have of human psychology and sociology. No, that can’t be it at all, it must be a lack of god. If the only thing keeping you from murdering and eating your neighbor, and raping his wife, is the fear of divine retribution, then you have some serious issues, but don’t project your insanity onto the hundreds of thousands of godless people across the globe living happy productive lives without an omnipotent warden looking over their shoulder.
What’s with the drama, AI in a game and AI in real life is very different.
We are currently running AI programs in actual robots and programs that manufacture items and various other applications. So if a careless programmer or even malicious programmer decided to program AI with similarly conflicting or possibly distructive motivations, it’s not a too distant jump to a Irobot or Terminator-esque future. or at least a considerable possibility of a threat. you idiot.
To the fool who said “Krill is an idiot”.
If you want to debate what I say, that’s your right, but if you want to insult me, do it in a semi-intelligent way that let’s me respond. “Krill is an idiot” is purely your own opinion of someone you don’t even know. You based your entire assumption on one single sentence I typed.
And to the atheist dude, try picking up a bible and studying it. Then you will be free to comment. An atheist describing God is like Osama Bin Laden describing the United States of America.
Actually, if you’d read I, Robot, you’d understand that it’s not actually the issue. There are a simple set of 3 rules that can be created and built as the foundation, to prevent such destructive motivations. I, Robot the book was about unique quirks and puzzles that these 3 rules created, and is a phenomenal read. I, Robot the movie was a reason to show lots of special effects and give the director a reason to cast Will Smith in one of his movies, and was an ok movie. The fact that you quoted I, Robot as a reason robots would kill someone leads me to think that you havn’t a clue.
Btw: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Laws_of_Robotics for the 3 laws contained within I, Robot.
You not understanding the difference between Robotics AI and Video Game AI, and how that robo vac you just purchased isn’t going to suddenly go kill you, is no reason to go insulting others.
I’ve been looking for more RAI development anecdotes like these for an essay I’m writing and I would love to use this. Could you provide the source?