Google DeepMind partners with EVE Online to test AI models
▼ Summary
– Google DeepMind has taken a minority stake in EVE Online developer CCP Games to study AI in complex, player-driven systems.
– CCP Games spent $120 million to buy out from former owner Pearl Abyss, rebranding as Fenris Creations with no layoffs or restructuring.
– DeepMind will conduct controlled AI experiments on an offline version of EVE Online, without affecting live players.
– Fenris CEO stated EVE Online is a unique environment for exploring intelligence, long timelines, and strange possibilities.
– DeepMind has a history of using games like Go and StarCraft as proving grounds for machine learning models.
Google DeepMind has taken a minority stake in the studio behind the iconic sci-fi universe EVE Online, marking a new chapter in the company’s use of video games as a testing ground for artificial intelligence. The research partnership will focus on studying “intelligence in complex, dynamic, player-driven systems,” according to the announcement.
This collaboration coincides with a major corporate shift at EVE Online’s developer, CCP Games. The studio has spent $120 million to buy itself out from former owner Pearl Abyss, the South Korean publisher behind Crimson Desert. The newly independent entity is being rebranded as Fenris Creations, and the company has confirmed it will continue operations as usual with no restructuring or layoffs.
Fenris and DeepMind explained in today’s announcement that EVE Online offers “a uniquely rich environment for study,” particularly for developing AI systems that require long-horizon planning, memory, and continual learning. To avoid affecting the live player experience, DeepMind will run controlled experiments on its models in a specially designed offline version of the game hosted on a local server. The two companies also plan to “explore new gameplay experiences enabled by these technologies.”
Google DeepMind has a long track record of using games to advance machine learning, from mastering complex board games like Go to outperforming humans in Atari VCS titles and StarCraft. More recently, the company has turned to virtual world models to help AI systems learn how to operate in physical reality.
Fenris CEO Hilmar Veigar Pétursson addressed players in an open letter, describing EVE as “one of the few environments where questions about intelligence can be explored inside something that already behaves like a living world.” He added that studying EVE will allow DeepMind’s models to tackle “difficult problems, long timelines [and] strange possibilities.”
“As a gamer and games producer, I’ve long admired EVE,” said Google DeepMind Director Alexandre Moufarek. “What the EVE community has created together with Pétursson and team is truly unparalleled in gaming. It is a one-of-a-kind simulation for testing general-purpose artificial intelligence in a safe sandbox environment. I’m excited to partner with the team at Fenris Creations to push the frontier of artificial intelligence and explore new player experiences.”
(Source: Ars Technica)