Lifeboat Foundation

We present GameNGen, the first game engine powered entirely by a neural model that enables real-time interaction with a complex environment over long trajectories at high quality. GameNGen can interactively simulate the classic game DOOM at over 20 frames per second on a single TPU. Next frame prediction achieves a PSNR of 29.4, comparable to lossy JPEG compression. Human raters are only slightly better than random chance at distinguishing short clips of the game from clips of the simulation. GameNGen is trained in two phases: an RL-agent learns to play the game and the training sessions are recorded, and a diffusion model is trained to produce the next frame, conditioned on the sequence of past frames and actions. Conditioning augmentations enable stable auto-regressive generation over long trajectories.

A few nutty professors have figured out a way to teach a smart gel how to play a video game, but can it clear Elden Ring?

The trailer featured quotes from famous film critics panning Francis Ford Coppola’s previous films that appear to be made up by ChatGPT.

In a study published in Cell Reports Physical Science (“Electro-Active Polymer Hydrogels Exhibit Emergent Memory When Embodied in a Simulated Game-Environment”), a team led by Dr Yoshikatsu Hayashi demonstrated that a simple hydrogel — a type of soft, flexible material — can learn to play the simple 1970s computer game ‘Pong’. The hydrogel, interfaced with a computer simulation of the classic game via a custom-built multi-electrode array, showed improved performance over time.

Dr Hayashi, a biomedical engineer at the University of Reading’s School of Biological Sciences, said: Our research shows that even very simple materials can exhibit complex, adaptive behaviours typically associated with living systems or sophisticated AI.

This opens up exciting possibilities for developing new types of ‘smart’ materials that can learn and adapt to their environment.

Episode · Walden Pod · In this clip, we discuss natural teleology. Subscribe at patreon.com/waldenpod for the patron feed, where you can hear the full version of this episode and others.

While large language models (LLMs) have demonstrated remarkable capabilities in extracting data and generating connected responses, there are real questions about how these artificial intelligence (AI) models reach their answers. At stake are the potential for unwanted bias or the generation of nonsensical or inaccurate “hallucinations,” both of which can lead to false data.

That’s why SMU researchers Corey Clark and Steph Buongiorno are presenting a paper at the upcoming IEEE Conference on Games, scheduled for August 5–8 in Milan, Italy. They will share their creation of a GAME-KG framework, which stands for “Gaming for Augmenting Metadata and Enhancing Knowledge Graphs.”

The research is published on the arXiv preprint server.

This study uses a natural experiment with game console lotteries to identify the causal effect of video gaming on mental well-being in Japan (2020–2022). Results show that video gaming reduced psychological distress and improved life satisfaction.

New Mexico’s ‘Earthships’ offer unique living off the grid.

Season 2024 Episode 06/20/2024

When it comes to materials for quantum sensors, diamond is the best game in town, says Cornell University professor Gregory Fuchs. Now he and a team of scientists have upped diamond’s game by generating exquisite imagery of diamond undergoing microscopic vibrations.