WHAT IS INTELLIGENCE?
The word intelligence is fairly nebulous. The dictionary will tell you it is the capacity to acquire and apply knowledge, but this is far too general. This definition, interpreted literally, could mean that your thermostat is intelligent. It acquires the knowledge that the room is too cold and applies what it learned by turning on the
heater. The dictionary goes on to suggest that intelligence demonstrates the faculty of thought and reason. Although this is a little better (and more limiting; the thermostat has been left behind), it really just expands our definition problem by introducing two even more unclear terms, thought and reason. In fact, the feat of providing a true definition of intelligence is an old and harried debate that is far beyond the scope of this text. Thankfully, making good games does not require this definition.
Actually, this text will agree with our first dictionary definition, as it fits nicely with what we expect game systems to exhibit to be considered intelligent. For our purposes, an intelligent game agent is one that acquires knowledge about the world, and then acts on that knowledge. This is not to say that our notion of intelligence is completely reactive, since the “action” we might take is to build a complex plan for solving the game scenario. The quality and effectiveness of these actions then become a question of game balance and design.
0 comments :
Post a Comment