US Army to invade World of Warcraft with AI

[Sir T]

http://www.bit-tech.net/news/2008/11/06/us-army-to-invade-world-of-warcraft-with-ai/1?tcs=nl

US Army to invade World of Warcraft with AI
Author: Joe Martin
Published: 6th November 2008
Comments (26) Email to a friend Stumble
Arnie might have been more recognisable, but we'd prefer to stare at Summer Glau's version of the Terminator instead.

Arnie might have been more recognisable, but we'd prefer to stare at Summer Glau's version of the Terminator instead.
The US Army has announced that it is to start testing a new type of artificial intelligence in public through the servers for Blizzard's World of Warcraft.

You heard us; SkyNet is coming to Azeroth!

The new AI has been designed by Dr. John Parmentola for the US military and is intended to be used to control holographic soldiers for use in training exercise and battle simulation. As an early test though the Army is to upload the AI to World of Warraft and see if it can successfully pass itself off as a human player.

"We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they’re good enough to convince humans that they’re actually human, that can think on their own, have emotions and talk in local slang," said Dr. John in a statement to the press.

"I actually interact with virtual humans in terms of asking them questions and they’re responding."

According to Gizmodo this is just one of several crazy-sounding projects that the Army is currently working on. Other projects include researching technology to erase memories that cause trauma, creating nanites that can rebuild limbs and finding ways that soldiers can play MMOs all day without getting fired.

Think you've spotted an AI wandering across Azeroth? Let us know what he looked like in the forums.

I predict when the US is fighting the Chinese the solders will all start paying them for better gear casue that wahst worked in their training...

[schild]

More like ALICE is coming to WoW.

/snore.

I really don't understand the point of this.

[Goreschach]

I predict massive lulz when they get banned for botting.

[justdave]

Use of the phrase 'Upload to World of Warcraft' costs you 5 hit points.

Obvious exits are [North], [South], and [Jackass].

[apocrypha]

The list of things currently in the works is amazing: Regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding", telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through "quantum ghost imaging".

Never ceases to amaze me how much bullshit these guys will spit out for their research dollars.

[Triforcer]

We'll know it achieved sentience if it asks to nerf warlocks. 

[Ratman_tf]

and finding ways that soldiers can play MMOs all day without getting fired.

 

[schild]

The list of things currently in the works is amazing: Regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding", telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through "quantum ghost imaging".

Never ceases to amaze me how much bullshit these guys will spit out for their research dollars.

I know right, had they said "flying cars" and nothing else, I'd have gone with it. BUT SELF-AWARE SOLDIER GHOSTS AND SHIT? FUCK ME SIDEWAYS, IT'S A FUTURE I NEVER DREAMED OF.

[Gets]

The list of things currently in the works is amazing: Regenerating body parts on "nano-scaffolding", telepathy through electronic impulses in the scalp, and self-aware virtual photorealistic soldiers that can be deployed in the battlefield through "quantum ghost imaging".

This leads me to believe that they've played a lot of Starcraft.

[Falconeer]

Jacked up and good to go.

[Sunbury]

I thought it would be an interesting MMORPG where the player's supplied the mobs in the form of bots.

There are many players who like to make and run bots, right?

MMORPGs mobs are mostly brain dead and boring, right?

So just have the MMORPG server just enforce the rules, and have the mob's played from clients (via bots) just like player characters are, therefore causing no more load on the server, since the AI is on the client.   Just like player characters, they bots one can run has rules, levels, etc, also they are leashed to appropriate areas, depending on the game system.

[tmp]

US Army to invade World of Warcraft with AI
The new AI has been designed by Dr. John Parmentola for the US military and is intended to be used to control holographic soldiers for use in training exercise and battle simulation. As an early test though the Army is to upload the AI to World of Warraft and see if it can successfully pass itself off as a human player.

"We want to use the massively multi-player online game as an experimental laboratory to see if they’re good enough to convince humans that they’re actually human, that can think on their own, have emotions and talk in local slang," said Dr. John in a statement to the press.

Had no idea /teabag, ninja looting and IM'ing people for hawt cyb0r and/or gold are part of training exercise and battle simulation in modern army. 

[Chimpy]

The problem is, 80% of the WoW playerbase could be fooled by Barry White claiming to be Joey Lauren Adams over the voip client. So geting them to believe the thing talking to them on the other side is human is probably not much of a stretch as mouthbreathers are common in the world of azeroth.

[Sunbury]

All they have to do is load one up with Chuck Norris jokes and let them stand in Barrens.   It would pretty much pass as typical player there.

[Calantus]

That is the main problem with this. It doesn't matter how stupid a player acts in WoW because we've all seen somebody do something even more stupid. The real challenge would be to make a bot stupid enough to stand out enough for people to wonder if it was not human.

[Goreschach]

Maybe, then, they're just doing this so they can point out a single success the next time the brass are debating their funding on laser vision goggle research.

[kildorn]

I eagerly await the day an AI hunter screams out on a raid that the sword is totally hunter loot.

Or sybers with the GM when it figures out it will get more DKP.

[Lantyssa]

Can I get the AI to add me to its friends list?  I figure it wouldn't mind hunting down items for me, it could lend me gold, and it'd probably be more enjoyable to group with than random players.  Plus I could mess with it to see how badly I could warp its AI (well, not so much mess with it as expose it to my particular form of insanity).

[Ragnoros]

This is beginning to remind me of the "Kidnappster" episode of Futurama.

[schild]

The best comment on this is from the Gizmodo thread:

"quantum ghost imaging"?
wow...

I can make up stuff that sounds impressive, yet means absolutely nothing as well!

"non-lethal replicable surface-to-air oscillations"

That would be the waves of sound resulting from me pulling things out of my ass.

Win.

[TheCastle]

Oddly enough all this would be useful for is game developers.

To license AI like this to populate your MMOG with human like npcs.

Otherwise this leaves me scratching my head..
It makes me picture soldiers in a real life situation strafe jumping.

I know I am being silly but AI like this could only function in an environment with path nodes or simple collision models. how do you apply navigation logic like this to actual real world environments!!??

edit:

"quantum ghost imaging"?

Oh there you go itallmakessensenowthanks

[angry.bob]

Bah, it's not some giant mystery what it would be useful to develop AI like this for. It's for unmanned weapons delivery platforms. If your A.I. is good enough to run around killing things and keep itself alive, it's good enough to put into an unmanned plane or tank and have it gun the fuck out of anything that doesn't respond to an IFF query. Pilots have been the limiting factor in aircraft design for decades now. Remote flying doesn't really cut it for fighters, but if you can replace the pilot with something reasonably close that's not subject to blacking out you can make planes capable of doing amazing stuff.

[Bzalthek]

Bah, it's not some giant mystery what it would be useful to develop AI like this for. It's for unmanned weapons delivery platforms. If your A.I. is good enough to run around killing things and keep itself alive, it's good enough to put into an unmanned plane or tank and have it gun the fuck out of anything that doesn't respond to an IFF query. Pilots have been the limiting factor in aircraft design for decades now. Remote flying doesn't really cut it for fighters, but if you can replace the pilot with something reasonably close that's not subject to blacking out you can make planes capable of doing amazing stuff.

Amazing stuff would be more movies where Jamie Foxx dies in huge explosions.

I would like to subscribe to this newsletter.

[TheCastle]

Bah, it's not some giant mystery what it would be useful to develop AI like this for. It's for unmanned weapons delivery platforms. If your A.I. is good enough to run around killing things and keep itself alive, it's good enough to put into an unmanned plane or tank and have it gun the fuck out of anything that doesn't respond to an IFF query. Pilots have been the limiting factor in aircraft design for decades now. Remote flying doesn't really cut it for fighters, but if you can replace the pilot with something reasonably close that's not subject to blacking out you can make planes capable of doing amazing stuff.

Well the problem is that none of this holds any water.
This whole entire thing falls apart under any kind of scrutiny.

First question is.
How are any of the tasks that you are given in WOW to progress similar to tasks that would be useful on the battlefield?
Now seriously lets break this down for at the very least some lulz.

Navigation
Dynamic path nod placement in virtual space and a understanding of the world collision would need to be possible on both a very high and a low level. This could be done a number of ways its not impossible just amazingly fucking hard or time consuming depending on the method.

Proper reading and parsing of quest dialog... Comprehending dialog meant for people and what the goals entail.
Responding to other players in a realistic fashion.
Dynamic changing of goals.
Understanding of each class and how to work in a team environment.

Quantum ghost imaging sounds like it just might make it possible

edit: Oh and as far as I can tell AI to play WOW differs enough from AI that functions on the battlefield that I would think that Tax money would better be spent on tailoring AI to do what it is meant to do. And I am using the term AI very loosely right now...

[schild]

If these ghost-players can group, I can't wait for them to somehow get in a raid and fuck it up.

Seriously though, how is WoW Glider and other scripting illegal but this is OK? I'm just wondering.

[Cadaverine]

Simple enough, the Army is giving them a shitload of money, and the Glider guys weren't.

Edit: Also, this sort of thing will make all the WoW players ooh and ah, whereas the botters mostly just made them bitch.  Plus this might even get a few people to log back in, if only to play "spot the willy".

[TheCastle]

Fun speculation!

A recent article on kotaku mentioned that China wants to begin collecting taxes on real money trade in MMOGs.
Knowing that gold farming can make large sums of money for china the US government decided that it would gain its own slice of the pie, or simply cockblock China.

Or this is a publicity stunt!

[Murgos]

Ohh, look!

A thread where someone quote an asinine article written by someone without a clue (Upload the AI to WoW?  Really?) and then teh itarwebs debates the nuances with specificity.

Garbage In, Garbage Out.   

[TheCastle]

Ohh, look!

A thread where someone quote an asinine article written by someone without a clue (Upload the AI to WoW?  Really?) and then teh itarwebs debates the nuances with specificity.

Garbage In, Garbage Out.   

hehehe damn it...
I R KING OF INTERWEB!!!!

[Morat20]

If these ghost-players can group, I can't wait for them to somehow get in a raid and fuck it up.

Seriously though, how is WoW Glider and other scripting illegal but this is OK? I'm just wondering.

Probably because the Army is (1) Asking permission and (2) Paying Blizzard.

[Tale]

More like ALICE is coming to WoW.

Froddoh says 'wanna grp? balckrock depth, got priest druid war, im shammy'
Milbot has joined the group.
Froddoh tells the group 'ok meet at zone'
Milbot tells the group 'what makes you think you are shammy?'
Froddoh tells the group 'dood im shammy ok? lol wtf'
Milbot tells the group 'ok'
Warreer tells the group 'im at zone'
Milbot tells the group 'let's discuss your priest druid war'
Froddoh tells the group 'their ok man, dont sweat it'
Milbot tells the group 'yes'
Milbot tells the group 'i am zone lol wtf'