If the idea of Artificial Intelligence becoming autonomous and learning to kill is scary to you, try being afraid when when the A.I. looks like Nintendo’s beloved Super Mario. Researchers at Germany’s University of Tuebingen have been working on an A.I. program that responds to voice commands, has an approximation of emotional states, learns from experience and is very cool.
According to Joystiq:
Mario AI can understand a wide array of voice commands, learn a similarly substantial amount of data from instructions, and autonomously adapt to his environment. Tell him you can kill goombas by jumping on them, and he’ll respond, “If I jump on goomba, then it certainly dies,” albeit in a robotic voice. Or you can tell him to kill a goomba, and he’ll start learning how to on his own (Danger! Danger!).
If Mario becomes hungry he will collect coins; if he feels curious he’ll explore his environment and learn about items he’s unfamiliar with. Ask Mario how he is feeling and he might say, “I feel very good!” If the user instructs to Mario stop feeling good, he’ll reply, “I suddenly feel less happy.” Poor Mario, very sad.
The video embedded above is part of a competition called the Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence’s People’s Choice Award. The winner will be chosen based on which video gets the most thumbs up on YouTube.
If you want to learn more about the research that went into this project just click here. This is pretty amazing stuff. We can’t wait to see this actually integrated into a game with Mario’s trademark voice.
(Photo: AAAI Video Competition)
