LAST BLOG

I feel as if A.I is deffinately possible in the nead future, except machines that look and act like humans that is a long ways away. This is a long shot away but scientists are working on it. iRobot, is a great movie but you never know AI could take over the world, clonning is another form of AI, Blader Runner or Code 46 were clonning is a big part of life, the sci-fi world clonning is a big part of sci-fi.

Who knows if clonning is A.I. or who knows if robotics are A.I., how many years will it take to reate this type of intelligence. I think that if intelligence such as this begins to get popluar, robots or clones will inevitabley be created and therefore the question you proposed yesterday in class, should they have equal rights?

I dont feel so, I feel as if natural born humans are the beings that should have rights but if we create something that is artifical that we control it, it is a very debated topic who knows,


A.I can help people as well, amputees, hearts, anything that will help a human survive.

This will be my last post for is406 and I bid you all farewell.

Thanks for reading,

Collin Hyte

Week 14

Do game-playing computers really demonstrate artificial intelligence?

Al Turing proposed the question, "Can Machines think?" over havlf a century ago.


"The phrase “The Turing Test” is most properly used to refer to a proposal made by Turing (1950) as a way of dealing with the question whether machines can think. According to Turing, the question whether machines can think is itself “too meaningless” to deserve discussion (442). However, if we consider the more precise—and somehow related—question whether a digital computer can do well in a certain kind of game that Turing describes (“The Imitation Game”), then—at least in Turing's eyes—we do have a question that admits of precise discussion. Moreover, as we shall see, Turing himself thought that it would not be too long before we did have digital computers that could “do well” in the Imitation Game." (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/turing-test/)


I unfortunately didn't get to hear Prof. Hansen lecture this past week but I did a little research on Artificial Intelligence, the Tauring test if a human being can tell the difference between a computer message or a human reply through a computer or message. Can computer think, I would say yes, we built them, they use different ways to solve problems and a lot faster than our minds can.

I would half to say that they have a process in which they go through, so you could either say that processesing is a form of thought, but a computer needs input and an order, for instance in NHL their are four difficulties, rookie, pro, all- pro, superstar and that determines how hard the computer will compete against you, you are giving it an input and it is processing the information so it is thinking but "artificially" if you want to say that. During the game the opposing players can eventually anticipate all of the options.

Watson is a great example of a computer with artificial intelligence he is a competitor on Jeopardy and a super computer that can answer questions in "natural language" the only problems it had in the game was when questions was too short and the clues where too short as well. But he can understand the human language and speak back, he stores information and can learn from his so called mistakes in a way.

"What would a computer have to do to demonstrate intelligence?"

I am big into sci-fi and I feel as if Watson is intelligent, alongside the robot from iRobot, or C 3PO these are fictional character in a movie but when a computer can reach those limits it will be scary, if it is even at all possible. Computer are intelligent, they help you when you mispell something in Word and the store loads of information on the world wide web. It is all personal opinion on what intelligence, artificial intelligence is. I wish I could have a droid of some sort but now in time they don't exist looking like that.

Week 13

I have to say the class itself is to complex for me to understand, I am just kidding. But I have been following along and keeping up with the class as much as I can and if I don't understand something Prof. Hansen does a great job explaining to me the long and drawn out version so I will understand it, I commend him for helping me out, that is besides the point, some problems which I find to be extremely complex could be P=NP but doesnt everyone.

Something in which I thought t be complex was when we went over permutations in class, I believe that it was the second week. I am not the greatest math guy in the world. I know they have to do with Logs and variables but I am not quite comfortable with them quit yet.

I don't want to say that I understand everything therefore I am not an expert in Game Theory but I have noticed myself becoming more understanding about all different forms of games. Especailly, Agricola or games of that nature, I enjoy looking at the opportunity costs aspect; makes you think.

In my blog before this I spoke about game theory and how it relates with life and when you think of how you can come out on top using many different strategies it is kind of cool. In class we look at games and compare them with real life situations and they can be used with everything as I have been constantly saying.

In all I am following along my is420 and it is a great way to thing about the different variables that life equations will bring you.

Week 12

Theory is used in many places and many fields. You can say that the world is based on a single theory. Economics you can use theory to predict how the stock market will rise and fall based on previous events that have occurred. The most important thing that people should know is that theory is what we base everything on, fact is in a sense fictional. It is easier to say that fact is fictional than it really is but for instance, a fact is that the sun is yellow but it is not a fact that if the stock market is going up and down, then it will stay for ever going up and down. Or even biology "a much easier example" it is the study of the body, we dont factually know what everything does in your body but we have an idea of how things react with each other and how it works, scientists say that we only use 8% of our entire brain, we have no clue what the other 92% does but we can make educated guesses.

Game theory is used in all sorts of different areas of study as I have been mentioning, this forms peoples beliefs.  The prisoner's dilemma is a great example of game theory in real life, you have two choices, either rat your friend out, or to stay silent when a cop is interrogating you. If you stay silent you and your friend will serve 3 months in prison but if you confess then you have a chance of going to prison for a year and if you stay silent you have a chance of a year in jail. Remember you are in another interrogating room than your friend, you can trust him or not, this is a basic premice of the theory. It brings up an ethical question, Should I confess to a crime becuase I think my friend is or should I stay silent and my friend does? It brings up the trust question which is relied on between beings.

You have Nash's Equilibrium Theory which touches upon dominant stratey and maximizing solutions for non-sum games, basically as Prof. Hansen put it, "both sides select a strategy and neither side can independently change its stratey without ending up in a less desirable postion.

Equilibrium Theory:The Nash Theorem maintains its focus on rivalries with mutual gain; a perceptual focus of Nash's mathematical vision found in the light of Leon Walrus' General Equilibrium Theory (published 1874) and John von Neumann's and Oskar Morgenstern's theory of games (1944), now simply called Game Theory. Nash later established his own idea of dominant strategy equilibria through maximization solutions for zero-sum games. He did this with original mathematical techniques to demonstrate the existence of methods for finding a measurable equilibrium in a general class of non-cooperative games.
(http://www.iscid.org/encyclopedia/Nash_Equilibrium)


The point of game theory is to educate people that everything correlates with each other in life. Everything goes together, no matter if you are playing a video game, board game, trying to win an election or trying to chase your million dollar dream of playing the stock market, game theory teaches you to evaluate a situation and look at all of the odds, dominant straties, risks, opportunities, costs, everything they tie with each other, game theory applies to life.

I am not a mathematician so Nash's actual equation is a bit complicated but when you read the context of what it means, he implemented rule that there is a equilibria to everything a balance, but in economics, it theoretically should work. It doesn't always work because we are not in a perfect system.

Game Theory in all is very uselful. The class has helped me over the past weeks to understand a more abstract view of life.

Week 11

While I have been studying game theory in my is406 class we have gone over many different ideas and topics and algorithms, many different ways that computer and human beings think a like. The differences between humans being and computer is a lot but one main different is the way in which we think about a bunch of different things. We have a broad perspective of a problem, and look at many different outcomes at the same time, maybe sub conciously or what not, but omputers think of the fast route to a problem, maybe alpha beta prunning, game treeing, pathfininding alorithms, many different ways.

From what I kow about game theory, you can use a lot of this in everydays life, a problem that we went over was the "prisoner's dilemma" and it is a tool that is used to find the most risk dominant best outcome between two people. Their are two people that get taken in to a police station and questioned for a crime and they are friends, if you trust one another than you both will stay silent and only spend a month time, if one or the other confesses to the crime than one will get no time and the other will get a year in jail or visa versa. Their is a risk strategy that you will either have to trust some one or either look at the big picture maybe try and save yourself, it all depends on peoples motives. I have an example that I am going to link to this as well.

This is just a little visual that I put up so the internet viewers will be able to see what I am talking about, this

example was part of my notes from Prof. Hansens class. You can see which one you would choose. (if you are an honest person)

You can use game theory in many other ways, in economics, Nash's Equilibrium which is " both sides have selected a strategy and neither side can independently change its strategies without ending up with a less desirable position." (Hansens notes)

This strategy is like the prisoners dilemma, what is the best dominant strategy. What is the best choice for the two that will dominate. This works on economics, the economy should balance it self out but as of now, it is not, the equilibrium is off. Hense the economy doing poorly.

Game theory is everywhere, game theory really is similiar to real life instances, the purpose of games is not just to have fun but to build strategy and open your mind to new routes and paths that are more efficient.

See ya next time,

Collin

Week 10

"Pathfinding addresses the problem of finding a good path from the starting point to the goal―avoiding obstacles, avoiding enemies, and minimizing costs (fuel, time, distance, equipment, money, etc.). " according to Stanford grad student.

Picture a maze what is the fastest way to get from the start to the finish.

Pathfinding is another way to search for the best route through a problem. This is the way that game programmers implement the games. They use this strategy for the games computer, the AI of the game and from what I have read Madden and other games such as this use pathfinding algorithms, the computer picks up the strategies that you are using and us that to there advantage and trying to stop you from reaching that goal, but then you actually start getting into AI software packages in which programmers have formed and they produce the illusion of a smartness or intelligence in a non player characteristic, also called NPC's for short.

I also looked a little into Convex Hull, basically it means if you are giving a point x on a linear plane, you are trying to figure out the convex hull of the plane. Convex combinations many of them which add up to 1, it is a bit tricky but it has to do with what the x points are and the interior, how much they add up to.

The point of these is to find the shortest route from place to place. In doing this you can use this for creating new proccesses and algorithms for games, use it in architecture, in war, laying our streets in cities faster many things.


Videos games become more complex this way as well. Not just Doom any more.

Week 9

Hey guys for all the fans out their who have enjoyed my blog, today I am going to talk about games trees and if games can still be fun if you know exactly how it will end up. So the thing is that computers can generate a game tree and caluclate it using minmax or alpha beta prunning. These are twos ways of finding the right answers to the game and solving them.

Minmax is when a computer or yourself looks at all of the possiblities even when you know that they may not work a maximum of 100 states which is a longer way to look at what you are trying to figure out. You can use this for a more complex and long list of Heuristics which are the numbers that the game tree is looking at to find the right solution to the problem or game. Heurisitics are also used for anti-virus software and signatures in code. Anti Virus software looks at a viruses heuristics to determine if the program is corrupt of what not. For examples, a virus comes into your body and your white T- blood cells eventually will kill the virus, but then the T cells picks up the viruses DNA and will keep that code remembered until you die and that is why you do not get the same cold over and over again. Kind of the same way with computers and Heuristics.

Anywyas Alpha Beta prunning is another way that a computer looks through the values and they only look at ten states so they determine the outome faster than the Minmax. It depends on the tree you are looking at as well.

In class last week Professor Hansen showed us how to play this game called Nim and this game consists of 3 piles of chips all different colors with five of each color and you have to determine your outcome and think ahead. You are allowed to pick either 1 or 2 chips from each color but only choose 2 from the same pile. So I played with my partener Shane a few games and it went bak and forth and that was a good example of how game trees work, a little abstract but I am getting used to it since I am in a 400 level IS class.


So can these games be fun with easily calculated game trees, the answer is both, it depends if you enjoy winning or playing a game. Easy calculating an outcome is not fun for me because I enjoy the strategy part of games but if you are playing for money than YES. But when you first start playing games such as Nim it takes a few games to get used to, so initially they are fun. It all depends upon the person.

Have another post up tomorrow for you guys after class.


Peace yall,
Collin

Week 8

     The complexity of a game state matters in games. It matters in games such as Nim, to a less complex game such as Jenga where your goal is to stack pieces of wood upon one another and then remove them piece by piece. I feel as if the complexity of a game would make it fun because you have to think about what you are doing. There are many different games that make you think in other ways. Differences between board games or card games. But you are always thinking ahead in all of games and different scenerios so you will have to understand the complexities of a game. For poker players maybe they think of it as negatively because they dont know the cards being dealt next are. For black jack players they understand that there is a simple algorithm to count cards..."maybe not so simple, but for players that can understand and master counting cards" so they with think of that as an advantage, they understand the variables that they are working with. Other games maybe Monopoly or even computer games such as Age of the Empires or their many other sequels Age of Mythology and the expansion pack but you have many things to think about while you are playing these games and you must have strategy because you have opportunity costs you must think of and that goes with the complexity of a game. Especially when you are playing against a computer, it is constantly thinking and planning ahead looking at different variations of of mooves. The computer is thinking of many moves and they can also be manipulated in a certain way. Look at computer games, Doom, when the mosters come and attack you constantly and you have to fight them off but there are levels of difficulty and those levels are based on the game state and its system of producing these different variables. So computers in a sense can dominate a game or can loose. The computer on Jeopardy Watson thinks like a person the way it filters peoples content through its "brain" he has a very complex way of choosing an answer like a human, it is A.I that is going to be the future, just like in the movie A.I, but Watson can still answer questions wrong. He will win a lot so for the computer it is good or well the creators because they rake in the caash from Jeopardy, so if you are trying to win a game the computer can be another variable that comes into play and you will have to over come it, all of the contestants on Jeopardy want to beat the computer and win some money so the computer negatively impacts them if they win. Thats it for today guys see you soon.

week 7

So we had a midterm last week and it was a touch one luckily, I got enough points so that I could gain points for my grade, our class is on a point system something that I have never had before in any other class. is 406 is a pretty interesting class all together we learn about different forms of games. We hae gone over a lot of differnet things within the past 7 weeks of class. I enjoy class a lot the lectures are very interesting sometimes long, but Prof. Hansen puts the material in ways that you can understand what is going on, especially for a communications major. The most interesting thing I think we hsve covered is last weeks lecture on risk dominance, and coopartive vs non cooperative games. If you think about games work this way, monoploy a great example of a game with opportunity cost, you have to weigh out pros and the cons of each and every turn that you get, when to buy homes, "if i buy this i cannot get this but will this end up being more profitable" a lot of things come into play that was one topic we uncovered. Or how Oxytocin is released with in the body when you trust another person. Professor Hansen put this into perspective as if you were playing a cooperative game and if you can trust one another so you will all survive in a game.
Lots of different things in this class are interesting, the Markov Chain, when we went over Shoots and Ladders. Markov Chain is a theory of probability, for instance maybe the number of times you flip a come, what the total outcome will be.

Week 6

So.. today in class we spoke about resource management. You here this term in economics usually, opportunity cost, you weigh the pros and cons of the decisions we make. Looking at this from a gamers view, cooperative games, resource management is key. Today well now that it is 2:07 am, actually yesterday in class we learned about RPG's, role playing games such as Dungeons and Dragons, World of Warcraft games as those and they are in a sense games in which resource managment does occur.


According to BusinessDictionary.com this is the meaning of Resource managment.

The process of using a company's resources in the most efficient way possible. These resources can include tangible resources such as goods and equipment, financial resources, and labor resources such as employees. Resource management can include ideas such as making sure one has enough physical resources for one's business, but not an overabundance so that products won't get used, or making sure that people are assigned to tasks that will keep them busy and not have too much downtime.

You use this not only in games but in real life as well making sure that your company is sufficient in what ever they are trying to produce. Opportunity cost, a big factor in business, you spend your money on a neccessity but have to give something up and make the decsion, "I may need this but if I do this then I will end up with a profit in the long run, yet I may loose business in Boston for example."


Professor Hansen gave the class an exercise in class today having to do with the game Dungeon and Dragons and we had to maximize the number of VP that you will get and by doing so you have to look at the opportunity cost of the items that you can purchase. You are given 5 hit points and 200 gold pieces to start off with.


Here is a list of the items:
Sword 125 gold and you have a 60% chance of defeating your opponent per round
Dagger 25 gold yet you have a 40% chance of beating your opponent per round
Leather Armor 75 gold and you have a 70% chance of being damaged per round
Chain Mail 150 gold and you have a 50% chance of being damages per round
Healing potion 60 gold and you can restore two hit points anytime you would like


You had to roll a ten sided die and beat ten opponents in a row in order to complete your mission and you had to figure out which of these items where worth it to buy so you can get, let's say the best bang for your buck. He explained to me how to figure this out and even though for instance the Sword may beat your opponent 60% of the time it still costs 125 gold and the opportunity cost of purchasing this item may not be to high. Maybe by purchasing the dagger and the chain mail you have a good chance to beat your opponents.


Going on to corporations they do indeed having building exercises and they need to in order for the employees to have trust in one another and be comfortable in their enviroments, communication is important as well as finding the best way to be rescourceful in your company. It makes perfect sense to have to have these books written on this fact. If you can trust your teammates and your fellow game players then you will do a whole lot better than not trusting them. Human beings rely on trust. It is part of our nature.


Cooperative games, the corporate business world, no matter what you are doing weigh out your pros and cons, be resourceful and look at you opportunity cost. Everything is intertwined....and relates to each other. 

Week 1

I havent blogged in a while since the first week but for all of you out there who do not know who I am my name is Collin Hyte and I a current senior at Norwich University in Vermont. I am on the Tennis team here at school and do a lot of outdoor activities, longboard, play frisbee, swim, when I am not playing tennis. I am not really into video games that much, except I play this game for the original XBOX called Topspin and I used to play that non stop with my younger brothers.

I'd have to say that my favorite board game is monopoly, maybe if it is the average person's favorite game, I have played it since I was a kid with my mom and rummy as well. Mostly card games I have been exposed to throughout my life. Othello is a great game as well you can play it when your young or when you are old and it teaches you how to be aware of a lot of different situations when playing a game or just in life in general.

This class that I am taking with Prof. Hansen is very different than the normal 3 hour boring class. The class is not boring at all. I am very interested in what we are talking about because this is a class in which you talk about games in a different prospective. Games and Algorithms is the name of the class and in every board game and video game there is a way to play it no matter if it chance or if it is through an arithomatic equation.

I'm looking forward to seeing what is in store for the rest of the semester.