The Future of AI in the Gaming Industry

With Artificial Intelligence now developing at such a phenomenal rate and being applied so successfully to games such as chess and Go, you really have to ask what the future of AI holds for the gaming industry….

You may have seen the news earlier this month that AlphaZero beat the world’s top computer programs at chess. More than just winning a single game though, over a total of 100 games played, AlphaZero won 28 games and drew 72. Now before we go any further let’s just clarify a few things here.

chess

This isn’t a case of a human being versus a computer. This is a case of a computer versus a computer. “So what?” you might ask. We already know computers are amazing tools so what’s so impressive about this development? Well the significant point about all this is that AlphaZero is a game-playing AI, which means that it effectively taught itself to be such an amazing chess player, whereas its opponent, Stockfish 8, was effectively “taught” to be brilliant by humans. In other words, it’s like putting a new boxer who has only been taught the rudiments of the sport in a ring with Anthony Joshua or Muhammad Ali. You wouldn’t expect the newbie to have a chance, let alone to pick up the techniques and tricks of the sport so effectively that he could beat a heavyweight champion of the world.

casino

Now online casinos already make use of a lot of the advanced technology we have available at the moment. It’s standard practice these days for them to have an app for mobiles for example so that you can play on the go, so a classic like the Blackjack at InterCasino can be played whenever and wherever it most suits you. It’s also becoming more and more common to find live casino games online as well. These offer an impressive level of virtual reality and give a more immersive experience than usual as there is interaction with a live dealer. If these features are so successful, then what will happen when the sort of technology that AlphaZero uses becomes more readily available?

At the moment, the developers Deep Mind, based in London and with research centers in Canada and a team in California, are very much on the frontline of this kind of research. However it is inevitable that in a few years other companies will start to develop comparable technology and then in time it will become available commercially. iPhones are always surging forward of course, bringing some mind-blowingly impressive software to everyday life, so Apple for one would certainly be interested in this kind of technology.

deepmind

It doesn’t seem too preposterous then at this stage to envisage a time, perhaps a decade or two down the line or perhaps sooner, when online casinos will be able to employ the kind of Artificial Intelligence used in AlphaZero to enhance classic table games and maybe even introduce some new games to challenge players and create even greater levels of excitement than can already be experienced.

–EOF (The Ultimate Computing & Technology Blog) —