On a related note: can't find any players? Maybe turn to a computer! https://www.wired.com/story/forget-chess-real-challenge-teaching-ai-play-dandd/

This is an article about how D&D is being considered as one way to
advance language-processing technology, and the difficulties thereof.
Like all Wired articles, it is light on any actual science (or news)
but its an entertaining read anyway (it's not really about AI playing
D&D. Not yet, anyway. Sorry).

Of course, as a DM myself I am threatened by the idea of AI coming to
take away my job. On the other hand, having AIs as player characters
is something I could totally get behind; maybe finally I'll have
somebody who actually listens to the NPCs backstories I worked so hard
on ;-)

(Aw, who am I kidding. They'll program the AI-PCs to rush headlong
into enemy mobs, randomly poke at things, and constantly spit-out
pop-culture quotes. It's much easier to do and nobody'll be able to
tell the difference from the real thing anyway ;-)

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On Sun, 01 Mar 2020 09:20:16 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson <spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On a related note: can't find any players? Maybe turn to a computer! >https://www.wired.com/story/forget-chess-real-challenge-teaching-ai-play-dandd/

This is an article about how D&D is being considered as one way to
advance language-processing technology, and the difficulties thereof.
Like all Wired articles, it is light on any actual science (or news)
but its an entertaining read anyway (it's not really about AI playing
D&D. Not yet, anyway. Sorry).

Of course, as a DM myself I am threatened by the idea of AI coming to
take away my job. On the other hand, having AIs as player characters
is something I could totally get behind; maybe finally I'll have
somebody who actually listens to the NPCs backstories I worked so hard
on ;-)

(Aw, who am I kidding. They'll program the AI-PCs to rush headlong
into enemy mobs, randomly poke at things, and constantly spit-out
pop-culture quotes. It's much easier to do and nobody'll be able to
tell the difference from the real thing anyway ;-)

While not an AI, as far as we know, MMORPGs monsters and NPCs are
controlled by the computer program that makes up the game.

I've seen a few claims from some MMOs their monsters, etc. do respond
to things the player characters say that aren't scripted. I haven't
taken those claims seriously.

--
Jim

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On Sun, 01 Mar 2020 10:54:25 -0600, JimP <solosam90@gmail.com> wrote:

On Sun, 01 Mar 2020 09:20:16 -0500, Spalls Hurgenson ><spallshurgenson@gmail.com> wrote:

On a related note: can't find any players? Maybe turn to a computer! >>https://www.wired.com/story/forget-chess-real-challenge-teaching-ai-play-dandd/

While not an AI, as far as we know, MMORPGs monsters and NPCs are
controlled by the computer program that makes up the game.

I've seen a few claims from some MMOs their monsters, etc. do respond
to things the player characters say that aren't scripted. I haven't
taken those claims seriously.

Well, unless the monsters are driectly controlled by GMs then all
responses have to be scripted. I recall this sometimes happened back
in the Ultima Online days but I don't know how common it is in modern
MMORPGs.

There is that one MMO - mentioned in the article - the AI Dungeon https://aidungeon.io/ - that creates a narrative around player
responses, but - while more wordy - it is no better about following
the plot than the old Eliza chatbots.

And of course, even the best of these aren't really AIs in the sense
the word was originally defined; they are all more expert systems with extensive language-processing-and-response algorithms that have no
real understanding about what they are saying, much less any sense of
identity. They are call-and-response with a large library of
pre-programmed replies; my cat has more real intelligence than any of
them. Still, if they can present the illusion of a real DM - reliably
creating new characters and situations on the fly that fit the
existing narrative - I'm all for it. But I fear it will be a long time
before we get anywhere near that.

Incidentally, I started playing with one of my groups as a direct
counter to how limited modern CRPGs were. I wanted to show them how
limited their options were when playing against a computer and how
much more fun it was when you had a GM who could creatively react to
their wilder ideas. Considering the group has stayed together (more or
less) for so many years, I think I successfully proved my point ;-)

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