News Google’s new AI will play video games with you — but not to win

[News]

Illustration: The Verge

Google DeepMind unveiled SIMA, an AI agent training to learn gaming skills so it plays more like a human instead of an overpowered AI that does its own thing. SIMA, which stands for Scalable, Instructable, Multiworld Agent, is currently only in research.

SIMA will eventually learn how to play any video game, even games with no linear path to end the game and open-world games. Though it’s not intended to replace existing game AI, think of it more as another player that meshes well with your party. It mixes natural language instruction with understanding 3D worlds and image recognition.

“SIMA isn’t trained to win a game; it’s trained to run it and do what it’s told,” said Google DeepMind researcher and SIMA co-lead Tim Harley during a...

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