Electronic Arts’ Search for Extraordinary Experiences (SEED) Division – which sounds like an anime space force – has created a “self-learning AI-agent” that has managed to teach itself how to play Battlefield 1 multiplayer.
In this blog post, Magnus Nordin from SEED details how his team, inspired by Google’s work with old Atari games, wondered “how much effort it would take to have a self-learning agent learn to play a modern and more complex first person AAA game like Battlefield“.
So they tried to find out. The results are an “agent” that, while inferior to human players, “is pretty proficient at the basic Battlefield gameplay”. The agent changes behaviour if it’s low on health or ammo, and while more complex behaviours like knowing the details of each map are beyond it (at the moment), EA has found that “while the human players outperformed the agents, it wasn’t a complete blowout by any stretch.”
You can see some agents in action below.
While there’s some good stuff on show there, you can also see some of the agent’s limitations, especially when it comes to thinking ahead. While they’re capable of acting immediately in response to threats, when left alone they “will eventually start to spin around to look for something to do”.
Which is funny now, but these are self-learning agents. Every time they play, they’re getting better, and it’s only a matter of time before they start reaching the point where it’s tough for a player to determine who’s a real player and who is just some AI running around in a uniform.
The potential for these agents is two-fold: Nordin not only sees them as a superior replacement for bots, but as useful for quality assurance and testing as well.
Comments
7 responses to “EA Created An AI That Taught Itself To Play Battlefield”
There would also be another use as general NPC behaviour in games. Rather than simply going to work at 9am on the dot and knocking off to go to the tavern at 6pm, they could demonstrate more realistic behavour depending on things like sickness, errands they need to run, etc
I sure hope they taught it to mimic human behaviour to avoid detection, like the occasional teabag and putting C4 on the flag…….
Then all you need is the chat bot routines from Microsofts Tay and no one will tell the difference when its starts spouting adapting to toxic behaviour mimicry.
Now if only they could invent a title with game play and depth.
I wonder if it felt regret after purchasing the dlc…?
It’s a little-known fact that EA tried the same thing with Battlefront 2, but even the AI boycotted it.
True story.
If/when they get it good enough I’d love to see it as a way of padding out server counts where player slumps occur, this would be especially good to us in this region of the world.
This would have been more impressive if they had a group of ‘pro’ players plays against them to see if that changes how they play.