Machine learning in video games

Artificial intelligence and machine learning techniques are used in video games for a wide variety of applications such as non-player character (NPC) control and procedural content generation (PCG). Machine learning is a subset of artificial intelligence that uses historical data to build predictive and analytical models. This is in sharp contrast to traditional methods of artificial intelligence such as search trees and expert systems.

Information on machine learning techniques in the field of games is mostly known to public through research projects as most gaming companies choose not to publish specific information about their intellectual property. The most publicly known application of machine learning in games is likely the use of deep learning agents that compete with professional human players in complex strategy games. There has been a significant application of machine learning on games such as Atari/ALE, Doom, Minecraft, StarCraft, and car racing.[1] Other games that did not originally exists as video games, such as chess and Go have also been affected by the machine learning.[2]

  1. ^ Justesen, Niels; Bontrager, Philip; Togelius, Julian; Risi, Sebastian (2019). "Deep Learning for Video Game Playing". IEEE Transactions on Games. 12: 1–20. arXiv:1708.07902. doi:10.1109/tg.2019.2896986. ISSN 2475-1502. S2CID 37941741.
  2. ^ Silver, David; Hubert, Thomas; Schrittwieser, Julian; Antonoglou, Ioannis; Lai, Matthew; Guez, Arthur; Lanctot, Marc; Sifre, Laurent; Kumaran, Dharshan (2018-12-06). "A general reinforcement learning algorithm that masters chess, shogi, and Go through self-play" (PDF). Science. 362 (6419): 1140–1144. Bibcode:2018Sci...362.1140S. doi:10.1126/science.aar6404. ISSN 0036-8075. PMID 30523106. S2CID 54457125.