Can AI play board games?

[@alexxpfister]

Yes, lets do a german interview! But I'm sorry to tell you, I don't have a cat, so the cat won't eat eggs :-). It was a blast to watch your video, Ryan. Rules: When you take 0-3 ships, take 1 card. So usually I stop drawing after the first or second ship (if the first ship wouldn't give me a lot of gold). Of course wanting to buy crew members, changes things a little.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Ah! i remembered the rule incorrectly. And i’m not wrong in thinking that the robot had an insane first turn drawing 20 cards. i’m not quite ready for a German interview. But i am determined to be!

[@AlphaFoxtrottMike]

Thunder road vendetta? Take pictures of the board

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Fingers still crossed that they’ll release the camera-enabled version of 4o and i won’t have to!

[@robcannon]

Amazing results for a model not specifically trained on those games. It wouldn't take much effort for someone to produce a model that is trained on each of those games, specifically. What is really needed to make it shine would be some service that keep track of the full game state so is is always available to the model. That would keep it from forgetting the special cards it had available.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Yeah - i was impressed with its grasp of the rules, but unimpressed with its ability to actually play. At the end of the King of Tokyo game, i was going to win if the bot didn’t do something to stop me. The robot still had cards she could have used, and i think she was keeping symbols that wouldn’t help her. Another crucial element is the camera access. A whole new world opens up if the human doesn’t have to explain absolutely everything about the board state to the robot.

[@RozanovaHunter]

I think the biggest consideration here is just how much computing power has to be burned up to have chatGPT play the second player. There have been plenty of discussions in recent years about making board games more ecologically friendly to reduce the impact they'll have on the planet. I can't see this application garnering any good will from that angle.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Hmm. You might be confusing Large Language Model AI with crypto? Crypto requires large server farms to crunch numbers day and night in search of ever-higher primes. i think a lot of power goes into training a LLM, but i didn’t think a ton was used in actually running one. Am i wrong?

[@RozanovaHunter]

​​@@NightsAroundaTable From reading some articles, to my understanding it takes a lot of energy and resources to build the model, and the larger the model and more complex the operation the more power it uses. Simple chatbot functions use less than generating images, and small images cost less computing power than large ones, but since they haven't yet implemented the "process and interact with your environment" feature there aren't any studies or figures to compare that to yet. All told, AI is using the power of a small country just like crypto did and growing at a rate that will apparently break Moore's Law, but you're right that they are two totally different things.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

@@RozanovaHunter Sure, BUT... different approaches to producing computation will outpace silcon in the years and decades to come. We'll be able to get more computation from fewer resources. And of course, the hope is that AI will grow smart enough to help us get there faster. It's kind of like... it's dirty and destructive to burn coal. But burning coal supplied us with the energy we needed to study alternative sources, so that we can eventually ween ourselves off it. But we'd never get there without easy, "dumb" ways to literally keep the lights on while we searched for more advanced methods.

[@MetalGearChamploo]

Fascinating

[@sevind7]

Still plays faster than the in-laws

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Way better at drinking oil too.

[@Commander6444]

So I'm of two minds vis-a-vis AI and board gaming. On one hand, I am very interested in how generative AI models might be able to attain general proficiency at board games as a whole. The computers have long stomped us at Chess and Go, and it would be quite something if that kind of capability could be extended to any board game. I don't really believe that's on the horizon anytime soon, but we'll have to wait and see. After all, if I'm with two friends and the game we want to play works best with four, it would be great to add a computer player on a whim. (Though perhaps not at Deep Blue level of play.) On the other hand, some people have tried to position AI as a cure for loneliness. I _wholly_ reject using AI in this manner. At best, I see it as a band-aid solution for healing only the most chronic of loneliness. At worst, I fear AI companions inspiring all sorts of antisocial behaviors in many people. Why learn complex social graces when your robot friends will abide even your worst impulses and actions? Anyway, I know this is all a bit heavy for a board gaming channel, so I'll stop here. But that's my general outlook on things as I currently see them.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Oh, no - please. Let’s absolutely go there. i also find it unsettling how gosh darned polite LLMs are. i have had numerous arguments with AI, mostly calling it out for its overconfidence in giving me answers that i know are factually wrong. When i began using 4o with a mind to doing this livestream and it misled me about setting up Anachrony, i was angry with it for just agreeing with me about the setup rule instead of… you know… checking the rulebook. But i got this unnerving Stepford Wives apology (made all the more unsettling since the voice was female). i really want to delve further into why those high-ranking staffers left OpenAI, but the cynic in me thinks it’s just to they could start their own firms and rake in a little of startup cash.

[@tehpickle1250]

Maaan I just find this stuff so mind-bogglingly impressive, even with the AI brain farts. But holy heck, it’s a lot of money to pay considering the arbitrary “wish” allowance. I would love to see how it copes with Lisboa, and how you’d cope with trying to explain the game state every turn! 😇😅

[@NightsAroundaTable]

Yeah! Forget the Turing test… let’s establish the On Mars test.

[@BobLee-df4zh]

It's even more mind boggling when you remember it's still in infancy.

[@NightsAroundaTable]

@@BobLee-df4zh Yeah... any of the shortcomings you see in this video will be eradicated, and (judging by its pace so far) right quick, too. Within the year, i'd guess.

[@ThisVojnik]

i didnt watch this video. but just saw the title. you playing with skynet bro. havent you guys seen the terminator? need to stop teaching it before its too late!!!

[@NightsAroundaTable]

COME WITH ME IF YOU WANT TO PKAY ANACHRONY