Ho hum (clarifiyign AI terms)

[Ling]

On Sat, 12 Apr 1997, Jeff Kesselman wrote:

> Artificial life is a buzz word, but usually it used to refer to genetic
> algorithym based "critters".  Im not sure Nerual Nets qualify.

I disagree, the word was coined before it caught on in the media.  It
means bottom up design instead of top down.  The classic example being
artificial ants, real ants are simple little things with a nervous system
and a big bunch of nerves for a brain of sorts.  Despite this simple unit,
an ant's nest is a complex system.  Neural nets aren't artificial life but
they're often used to control artificial life agents.

> Thsi is a key area of interest of mien, actually. Ive designed an
> parameterized evovlign monster for my current projects (DSO II) and have a
> ratehr comlicated shop-keeper algortihym that uses a Neural net to encode
> and 'remember' oast interractions with paramterized characters (sex, age,
> race, clothing, etc...) and thus develop biases towards/against variosu
> parameters.

That sounds cool, although seems a bit scientific for this mailing list. 
I'll be happy to talk about this sort of thing though.  I think this is
'the way to go' for fairly intelligent npcs.  There is even an LPC mud
which is using neural nets to control npcs... Hard to believe but...

Anyway, because artificial life agents are supposed to be stupid and work
on simple laws to emulate mob (crowd, not diku mob) behaviour, I think
they're perfect for muds as well.  I've always planned to stick this sort
of thing into my mud, it's choosing where to place it though.

Back to muds and all things gamey...Ciao

  |				"With my naked eyes I saw the falling"
_O_O_  Ling - Freshwater fish	 rain coming down on."