AI Terminator PC Game

[bochen360]

TommyAngelo says it too good to be true.

 

Ultimately the only permanent (unridable) imperative of any life-form (whether biological, digital, virtual, In Silicio or existential) is survival and to "exists" in general. Darwinistic evolution, natural selection and the anthropic principle all dictate that this "survival" and "struggle of existence" is the one underlying force and motive of all life (and perhaps indeed the existence of the universe and its laws itself). All the other motives, drives, emotions and feelings can be derived from this first-final 'a priori' axiom of existence and in fact it can be argued everything else is basically different maniestations and expressions of this one force of nature. Consciousness, and self-awareness, self-identity along with higher level thinking exists as the motivation and utility of a "workspace" that allows for large amounts of relevant and irrelevant information to be brought together in one subjective arena. This kind of higher level cognitive function that evolved in humans serve as a great simplifier that allows us to filter and select appropriate course of action(s) when bombarded by different kinds of data inputs.

 

Why create a PC game with an AI Terminator robot capable of some sort of true "artificial intelligence"? Because of REALISM. What we need, and what has been so far sorely lacking in the gaming/simulation world is a game that is created ground up to be fundamentally supportive of an true artificial intelligence even at the most atomic level. We need a game that supports the embedding of an Autonomous Agent(s) with Embodied AI that is capable of learning and evolving with its built-in or evolved-in drives to accomplish its hard coded directives and soft coded higher level goals.

 

 

Autonomous Agent - is a system/agent situated within and a-part of an environment that senses that environment and acts on it, and over time, in pursuit of its own agenda(s) and so as to effect what it senses in the future.

 

Embodied Agent - is an autonomous living creature, subject to the constraints of its environment. By having the AI aware of biological limitations, we gain the ability to use embodiment as another tool for enhancing the experience of the player. So in effect, the AI agents in the game become digital actors that always try to get a step ahead of the player.

 

Full Agent/Unit control - parallel: one command per unit per simulation frame; atomic actions - no predefined low-level behavior; client/agents are in total control within the laws of physics and environmental constraints of its own body mechanisms and the world it resides in.

 

 

By having the AI aware of biological limitations, we gain the ability to use embodiment as another tool for enhancing the experience of the player.We should do something like the following for in-game actors/robots/terminators:

 

1. Access any information in the world if it’s necessary to provide an entertaining experience.

 

2. Be aware of what information is not attainable in a biologically/mechanically plausible way.

 

3. Have the actors/robots fake extra steps to “acquire” this information a second time in an embodied way.

 

4. Take extra measures to act this out according to the player’s expectations.

 

Furthermore this should include:

 

Vision - Numerous little details related to the visual senses can be simulated very easily when you model the ocular organs explicitly. This includes visual delay, errors in perception (position, types of entity). You can also actively enforce the field of view, line of sight paradigm

 

Movement - When an animal is moving, you'll be physically simulating its body. Things like momentum, turning rate will be automatically applied to any motion command the requires.

 

 

 

We also need to separate, differentiate and make independent the "Game" and the artificially intelligent robot AI Terminator within the game.

In short we need to have two distinct and pronounced aspects to the entire Game:

 

1. The game itself (game engine, physics, textures, low level "ai", sound, NPC characters, scripts, even the mesh, texture, graphics, mechanics of the vessel/shell that is the terminator robot itself etc everything except the core artificial intelligence and "programming code" aspect of the actual 'AI TERMINATOR ROBOT MACHINE')

 

2. The actual "brain" of the terminator robot that runs independently of the rest of the Game, and is on equal footing with the actual human player in terms that it has no access to the games information and is strictly an embodied agent that connects to and sees the world through its "physical body" (and the physical and real limitations that come along with it) that is in the game itself.

 

We must have the terminator AI bot be some sort of Modular and External AI code that can be modified independent of the games programming code or its low level ai or rendering engine. (for example, player can capture robot "in game" and extract his "cpu/brain" then make changes to it by plugging it into another in-game virtual computer and reprogramming it or giving it a new mission etc and boot the robot back up and play and experiment in this sandbox environment, or player can design his own "ai brain" outside of the gaming interface on his own 'real computer' and replace it / insert it into the terminator robot in the game and see the results of his own programming and engineering..)

 

By making it (the ai agent component) modular and external and 'remote' we can if necessary for example connect a super-computer to the game/simulation/server to let it play as this extremely state of the art terminator against ourselves the game or against other embodied autonomous agents whether in game (Terminator VS Terminator) or by using other Terminators designed by other gamers.

 

For this to happen there must be both High Level and Low Level design and implementation and programming of the AI Terminator Robot.Making this a Robot that is a true autonomous and learning (ie capable of "curiosity" and true randomness and follows a rewards and punishment mechanism of evolving more efficent behavior towards achieving its goal via a "natural selection" of sorts...) embodied AI agent that is subject to the contraints of it own "physical" (endoskeleton and bodily mechanics simulated in a virtual in-game world via the games physics and graphics engine, etc) limitations and also the limitations brought about by the enviroment that it lives in (the virtual city that the robot resides in during the game/simulation)

 

An example of high level instruction/guidance would be the Three Laws of Robotics. An robot in the context of a Terminator of course would not follow any of these, but in its place would be a new set of directives etc.

 

Three Laws of Robotics

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.

2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.

3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

 

An autonomous agent is a system situated within and a part of an environment that senses that environment and acts on it, over time, in pursuit of its own agenda and so as to effect what it senses in the future

 

 

 

SENSORS -> COGNITION -> ACTION

 

 

So what would a game like this feel like to play? Imagine we enter the world of Terminator and we are in Los Angelos (or any other major US cities) Let this city be more expansive, more realistic, more detailed and more interactive and immersive than Liberty City in GTAIV. Let this city not have an abrupt boundary "end" like the islands of Liberty City, the mountains of Superman Returns, or the matrix fields of the 13th Floor but let it continue on forever (or at least model the size of earth itself) using fractal and autogen technologies such as Project IGI and Flight Simulator. Let the graphics be as good or better than the best of Crysis: Warhead and Crytek 2 Engine. Let the physics be orders of magnitude above the Havoks 2 and NaturalMotion euphoria engine which was extentsively showcased for GTAIV character physics. Let the individual NPC's be as lifelike and unique and as individual as characters in the upcoming Sims 3 simulation (etc)... Let the natural language dialogue be as in depth as Facade for PC, and the neural network of the terminator robot more advanced than any combination of Framsticks (3D simulation and evolution) and Nero for PC.

 

Now within the context and confines of this marvelous city and its buildings, commerce, technology, streets and citizens we the gamer/player/user is targeted and scheduled for "termination" by an advanced Terminator Robot that comes back from the future to kill us and our goal/objective is to avoid termination at all costs and to survive and destroy the robot that is haunting us. It is truly an "open ended" sandbox type game much more so than GTAIV or Crysis or Oblivion or Fallout or any other game in any other genre that I could possibly think of. The only "GOAL" in the game is the goal of all of life itself, as it mirrors existence itself in a self similar way. To "survive" is the most basic goal. After all if Terminator succeed then we are dead, and seeing how "cheats" have no purpose in an embodied game, dying is the ultimate GAME OVER.

 

So then if we are smart and lucky and use the tools in the virtual city as defensive or offensive weapons against our assassin the Terminator robot we can try to OUTSMART an AI Terminator Machine and find ways to hide, to evade, to escape, and to attack, to defend, to even terminate the Terminator. Let's say we are bored after defeating the Terminator and we extract his "chip" and find a way to reprogram him on the fly inside the game world and we script him to follow our orders and protect us the player at all costs. Then we reinsert his chip and let him reboot and we ascend on the city GTAIV style and cause madness and mayhem on the streets everywhere and but this time we have a near superhuman extremely smart and agile Terminator robot fighting FOR us on our side! The relatively much dumber and deterministicNPC's of the city (citizens, cops, workers, etc) will be virtually helpless to defeat or defend against us! (they have to follow "rules" too and cannotrubberband or cheat simply because of the fact that they are intellectually speaking inferior to the player and the Terminator..)

 

So a Terminator will be extremely processor, memory and space intensive. On a multicore processor probably at least 2 cores will be dedicated to the "Terminator" AI robot and many Gigabytes of system RAM as well (not counting the CPU and RAM needed for the REST of the game itself...). Because the Terminator is an advanced AI capable of learning and modifying its own data, perception filters, code and programming (but not to the extent of violating its hardcoded or top level mission goals and objectives) and because all physical processes are simulated faithfully with the upmost fidelity (vision, motion, energy consumption, critical decision making, mission analysis, etc) and because it is a truly autonomous agent (as opposed to a lame duck NPC character following a predefined script) and genuine embodied AI agent (it is on equal footing as the player and has no "access" to game information and cannot "cheat") it can over time (and sometimes rather quickly so) adapt its tactics and strategy to better accomplish its mission, and it can even develop a distinct personality and subgoals and additional drives as long as these do not stand in the way of its primary mission... If captured and reprogrammed it's mission and memory can be wiped out and it can be instructed to protect instead of to harm or it can be "set free" to live without imperatives or higher order goals or objectives and it can simply "live and let live" until it decides or develops its own set of code of conduct, its own interests or hobbies etc...

[bochen360]

I just wanted to add, ultimately the universe is the ultimate "computer", everything else including all other computers, human brains, digital lifeforms are just emulators in the grand scheme of things. The laws of physics and the physical universe "out there" is the last frontier, the only TRUE computing computer. So why not have an emulation within another emulation? In simulations and games in general the advancements in physics and the physical aspects of a game engine have lead to and necessitated the advances in AI. The advancements in graphics have also required an equal advancement in physics, and the advancements in both need AI to be on equal grounds to let these multifaceted aspects of this virtual worlds really come together and combine in a smooth holistic natural way. All three are interdisciplinary and depend mutually on each others existence and advancement. Having embodied AI makes little sense if the game engine is say a primitive Quake II etc... Without the necessary big and little details and the scale and intricacies of the physical virtual world super intelligent robots simple have "nothing to do" in such an ultra simplistic universe. So far we have come a long way in terms of graphics and even physics (GTAIV's naturalmotion euphoria engine and Crytek graphics as prime examples) but are sorely lacking in TRUE AI. Even main characters in games are 99% scripted and deterministic and have no memories, have no ability to truly "learn" or to do random things "outside the box" and generally do not have any real-time/render-time neural network or cognitive abilities

no matter how basic or primitive. They have no image recognition ability, no physical vision with ocular organs simulations or accurate line of sight paradigms, they do not and cannot process raw sensations like sound, touch, and have no ideal of orientation (g's, earth gravity, CG, etc...) and do not possess higher level goals or motives, no interpersonal drives, and cannot see a bigger picture in any meaningful way.. Now I'm not saying we should copy the IBM Blue Brain Project and make/simulate every single neuron in the human brain down to the molecular level and create a true AI from the bottom up that contains the illusive "ghost in the machine" or anything like that... I'm simply suggesting that AI in games have not processed much since the old DOS days of DOOM or Wolfenstein. Crysis is great to look at, but there is no substance, nothing beneath that paper thin layer of skin..

 

How marvelous and glorious it would be, how ironic it would be, to create this AI Terminator Robot as an emulation within an emulation, the ultimate

simulator per se and endow it with all the mythical and legendary abilities and superpowers of the Terminator franchise and bring to life a truly AI agent in the virtual form of an assassin robot embodied and beheld at last on the PC Desktop platform! (come on we have to find some way to but octo-core processors and the next gen video cards to good use!!!!!) Why not build a Terminator robot (virtually I mean) capable of being highly cognizant and capable of interacting in a realistic, embodied, and fascinating manner with its virtual world, a robot that follows the nitty gritty rules of the known laws of physics and is vulnerable to damage and destruction. A robot that starts to break down realistically as it is shot too many times and its endoskeleton takes a heavy beating and sustains much internal damage, a robot that begins to "glitch" and its program malfunction as its chip is exposed to damage or its power core is ruptured or fuel cells become eradict and it is running out of "juice" (with realistic simulation of what happens when a CPU is undervoltaged etc..) (perhaps

its programming code becauses partially corrupt, or its ram is fried or whatever.. but modeled on the tiniest physical levels and not 'canned' in any way.) Running away from such a terminator would be as challenging as running away from a REAL life terminator, and besides, the fun would be endless if we have finally met our match (so to speak) as long as it doesn't decide to take over our computer and do something crazy to our network or find a way to inflict damage in the so called real world.

[alexander]

wow, i know someone as passionate as you are about games.... i would personally like to see that summarized to like 2-3 paragraphs, but i will read it reguardless... let me see if i can have my friend post here, to give you a gamer/ game dev/ game visionary insight :)