AI researchers get ready for a deathmatch with Doom gaming challenge

Artificial intelligence made short work of Go, a 3,000-year-old Chinese board game with more possible moves than atoms in the observable universe, so how it will fare taking on a video game classic like Doom? AI researchers are going to find out, and have announced a new challenge looking for computers that know how to handle a rocket launcher, with the best bots set to duke it out in a deathmatch later this year at the Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG) Conference. At first glance, this might sound like a walk in the park. After all, if you've ever played a first-person-shooter against computer enemies, you'll know they can be as fast and accurate as, well, a computer. But the bots you've played will have had access to the game's inner workings -- they're looking at the world like Neo in The Matrix, with perfect knowledge of maps, weapons, and the positions of other players. For the "Visual AI Doom Competition," artificially intelligent bots will only have the same information as a human: they'll see the screen in front of them, and nothing more. "There are all sorts of video games that humans play way better than computers."