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Computers can predict your pwnage
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 3rd September 2007
That's right, Bot - guess what I'm going to do next! Mwhahaha! Ahem.
Oh, and slotting in somewhere between the two were games like Thief, Far Cry and F.E.A.R all of which gave enemies additional abilities and intelligence, letting bad guys suddenly become capable of flanking, searching and lobbing grenades to flush out stealthy players.
So, it's hardly surprising that artificial intelligence has taken another leap forward. What is surprising though is that computers are now capable of predicting the future actions of players by measuring heart rates and skin conductance.
According to The Raw Feed a new study by Laszulo Laufer and Bottyan Nemeth, a pair of Hungarian scientists from Budapest University, has allowed computer opponents to do just that though.
The study involved getting human guinea pigs to play a simple game and measuring their cute little heart rates and skin conductance. Them after "utilizing neural networks to analyze the biofeedback signals and input records," the data showed that the actions of players could be accurately predicted up to two seconds before they occurred.
The study doesn't go into much detail about how the technology may be used in actual gaming, but it would certainly make things interesting if the technology could be integrated into a game of Counterstrike: Source - nobody would be able to cry 'hacks' anymore without pre-emptively being told off.
Do you enjoy playing against bots in a multiplayer game, or is multiplayer action where its at? Let us know what you think in the forums.
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Comments (18)
Stats: 0.200 seconds
No, instead humans use reason and creativity to imagine what opponents might do minutes or even hours ahead of the actual action, then narrow it down by watching body language etc before the actual attack occurs.
Personally I don't believe this, I rarely know what I am doing two seconds in advance in a game of CS, let alone a computer working it out. This all seems rather unbelieavable to me to be honest.
***proceeds to ultimate belly slap Joe***
I think that was sooooo awesome I should sign it.
(Guess the reference)
We have a WINNA!
I think that's the point. If they are looking at responses gamers make based on heart rate and skin conductance that has a stronger link to their emotions than their thoughts. Your emotions could affect your decision to take cover or to fight. I think the study is most interesting because it gives some sort of insight into what our natural instincts are in a tense situation like a battle.
I think Joe put the wrong spin on this in relating it to AI. It is easy to make AI unbeatable. It isn't easy to make AI believable. Even if games were linked up to your heart rate and skin conductance, it wouldn't be of any benefit to have the AI guess what you were going to do next as it would be totally unrealistic given that in real life, your enemy doesn't know what your emotions are. What it does show however is that most people seem to have similar behaviour in certain situations and games are just a method of putting someone in these kinds of situations in a controlled way.
or shoot, or when he finds and enemy, or is near his objective, or is low on ammo or health..... and this could be used out there in the battlefield....
*Alan Partridge Voice* Back of the net! */alan*
it's just like a magician. you watch the hands, not the eyes.
N'ah, I still don't agree. Imagine a CS game (for example), you're running along, on the look out for enemies, then one appears... BANG! Either you live, or they do. Now imagine just how long two seconds is. That's one.... two..... done. How long is two seconds in a game of CS? Entire teams can be wiped out by a single guy in two seconds. It's impossible to predict what's going to happen in two seconds time, conciously or not, because you base your actions ordinarilly on stuff that happens maybe only half to a few tenths of seconds in the past, not two seconds ago. If you react to stuff two seconds late, you'd be dead all the time.
If they said "we can predict stuff that will happen in a tenth of a second" then fine, that makes more sense, but to say two seconds that belies belief, because that requires traveling into the future to obtain information the players themselves have yet to recieve, unconciously or not. Maybe in a test of "at some point in the future, shout "YO!" and I bet we can predict when that is going to happen" they can work, but people don't have the luxery of having all the information they need to make a decision in advance in most games out there, it's often reactionary, but based on a strategy, so we're talking unconcious decisions of a tenth of a second, and concious ones of about 30 seconds or a minute. At no point are any decisions made that happen two seconds in advance.
Predicting 1/10th of a sec = no Research grant
Predicting 2 sec = Research grant:D
It's all a load of hog wash. There is not fate but what we make for ourselves. (cue terminator music).
P.S I wonder where they stick them probes to tell when your excited :)
you would defeat it the same way you would defeat a polygrapth stand on a tack :) the pain causes you heart to beat faster and for your skin to perspire (of couse the more pain the better the response) the sensors would see this and predict something to happen based on these events when all that has really happened is that you stood on a tack on purpose :)