How Big Data and AI Are Set to Transform Online Gaming
If there were two technological advances that were said to have come of age in 2017, they were surely virtual reality and artificial intelligence. While the use of the former is there for all to see – you can hardly miss someone wearing a pair of VR goggles, after all – the application of AI can be much subtler. So subtle, in fact, that many people don’t notice it all.
For example, how many people realize that it’s AI that helps to filter out the email messages that seem to spam, despite the spammers’ best efforts to always stay a step ahead? Or that it’s this technology that helps companies like Uber and Lyft to manage their surge pricing at times of especially high demand?
In fact, for the majority people, if you asked them for an example of AI in everyday use today, most would probably cite either Apple’s Siri or Amazon’s Echo but not be able to go much further than that.
Nevertheless, AI is already providing huge benefits and making life easier, and even safer, for more people than ever realise it and will do this more and more. So as we head into the future we are going to need an ever-increasing number of talented computer science graduates to develop it.
Most agree that something that has both created some of the need for AI, as well as providing the fuel that drives it, is the rise of big data. With huge amounts of information that need to be processed if they’re not simply to go to waste, the value of harvesting it has never been greater. Then it can be harnessed and used to help computers make ever more nuanced and accurate decisions about everything from the flow of a city’s traffic to the shopping preferences of a consumer.
But for all of its practical uses in everyday life, one industry that has arguably done more than any other to explore and exploit the potential of AI is gaming. As early as 2001 games like the mould-breaking Black & White and The Sims were first starting to use AI to enhance player involvement and to create experiences that were as far away as it was possible to be from the earliest days of video games like Pacman and Space Invaders.
It doesn’t need too much thought to realise exactly why this link between gaming and AI exists, and also why it’s so very important.
