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The AI can't always know if it's going closer to the next trainer if the next trainer is off-screen. There's also no visible counter of how many trainers you've

The AI can't always know if it's going closer to the next trainer if the next trainer is off-screen. There's also no visible counter of how many trainers you've defeated, only how many badges you have. If you're giving the AI knowledge of where and what a trainer is and how to get closer to one, why not give it knowledge of the map of the routes? Then your branching factor is binary: are you further along, or not? That's not an AI beating Pokemon, that's an AI beating your decision tree. In fact, if the AI knows what RNG it's on, it's deterministic. So all it needs is a script. At one point in Gen 1 there are 4 gym leaders you can to get closer to. You can also go after one of two HMs. How can an AI determine success in that in a human timeframe? Additionally, one failure mode is ending up with no money, a level 1 Rattata, and no pokeballs. The AI might not feel frustration, but its branching factor just grew again. And the branches have loops. Edit: the crux of this is that it's not an AI (as described by Alan Turing) taking on Pokemon, it's ML. A general Pokemon-beating AI would need other tricks.

roenxi 8y ago
The issue with this logic is that the AI is being held to a subtly higher standard than a human. Consider this - how do _you_ know that there is a next trainer if it is off screen? I'd guarantee you didn't figure that out from the context of the game, because then you'd have the same problem as the AI - it isn't data that is provided in the game.
- kurtisc 8y ago
  Because I can read and understand a context of a video game, a map, vision, etc. So now it's reduced the problem to creating a general human AI. Good luck! FWIW, a (ML) bot can beat Mario with just the x-value - what a human understands by viewing the screen.
  - roenxi 8y ago
    > Because I can read and understand a context of a video game, a map, vision, etc. Did you spontaneously figure out how to read? I put it to you that you didn't, and that you were taught how to by someone else. I'd also put that the entire concept of interaction has to be a learned thing in practice, because realistically nobody learns how it works without interacting with someone else who is already reasonably knowledgeable. Now obviously that AI can't read because we don't have a good way of telling it how to map glyphs to concepts that it understands. However, to call the glyph->concept mapping the core challenge of a Pokemon game is clearly silly. The concept of there being something off the edge of the map on screen isn't something you are figuring out from the game either, it is just an assumption from knowledge that the real world is larger than what you can see. Similarly, that is obviously not an important aspect of the game - it is assumed knowledge. The challenge of the game is to navigate and explore a simple world, figuring out which order of actions to take. Short-circuiting the knowledge acquired through reading and the priors about how a world behaves is completely fair when saying that an artificial intelligence has been developed and can beat the game. A human player is expected to already know how to do that too.
    - kurtisc 8y ago
      If you tell it directly what the meaning of the text is then I disagree, you've done the hard part. Then it's not beating Pokemon, it's beating the next task on your list, e.g. 'Go and get this thing from this city and bring it to this person in this city'. The alternative is don't go for teaching it the meaning at all, where there is a functionally zero chance of it randomly taking the plot token to the right place and then realising it can progress further.

roenxi 8y ago

The issue with this logic is that the AI is being held to a subtly higher standard than a human. Consider this - how do _you_ know that there is a next trainer if it is off screen? I'd guarantee you didn't figure that out from the context of the game, because then you'd have the same problem as the AI - it isn't data that is provided in the game.

kurtisc 8y ago
Because I can read and understand a context of a video game, a map, vision, etc. So now it's reduced the problem to creating a general human AI. Good luck! FWIW, a (ML) bot can beat Mario with just the x-value - what a human understands by viewing the screen.
- roenxi 8y ago
  > Because I can read and understand a context of a video game, a map, vision, etc. Did you spontaneously figure out how to read? I put it to you that you didn't, and that you were taught how to by someone else. I'd also put that the entire concept of interaction has to be a learned thing in practice, because realistically nobody learns how it works without interacting with someone else who is already reasonably knowledgeable. Now obviously that AI can't read because we don't have a good way of telling it how to map glyphs to concepts that it understands. However, to call the glyph->concept mapping the core challenge of a Pokemon game is clearly silly. The concept of there being something off the edge of the map on screen isn't something you are figuring out from the game either, it is just an assumption from knowledge that the real world is larger than what you can see. Similarly, that is obviously not an important aspect of the game - it is assumed knowledge. The challenge of the game is to navigate and explore a simple world, figuring out which order of actions to take. Short-circuiting the knowledge acquired through reading and the priors about how a world behaves is completely fair when saying that an artificial intelligence has been developed and can beat the game. A human player is expected to already know how to do that too.
  - kurtisc 8y ago
    If you tell it directly what the meaning of the text is then I disagree, you've done the hard part. Then it's not beating Pokemon, it's beating the next task on your list, e.g. 'Go and get this thing from this city and bring it to this person in this city'. The alternative is don't go for teaching it the meaning at all, where there is a functionally zero chance of it randomly taking the plot token to the right place and then realising it can progress further.