4Intelligence in Games

After a fun day among the robots, Fawzooz took the two children on a trip into the world of video games, to a games corner that the village’s young people had set up in the shared workspace. There he asked them, “Did you know that lots of games use artificial intelligence?” They said together, “How?”

Fawzooz explained, “In racing games, for example, AI controls the other cars to make the race more challenging. In other games, the opponents move and make decisions depending on what the player does.”

“AI makes every time you play different from the time before.”

The little boy sat down to play the racing game, and he won twice. But the third time, a blue car blocked the road in front of him, and he shouted, “It’s cheating!” Fawzooz said, “It saw you go round on the right twice, so it waited for you there. The opponents adapt to the way you play, so every time is different from the last.” And his sister said, “Change the way you play, little brother; it’s learning, and you’re learning too!”

The little boy said excitedly, “Can we learn how to make a game?” So Fawzooz began teaching them how to program a simple character that walks, jumps over rocks and collects stars. They felt like real game developers.

The little girl said, “I want to make more games!” And the little boy said, “I feel like an inventor!” Fawzooz said, “You really are little inventors.”

Then Fawzooz reminded them that the sun was about to set, so they switched off the screens and ran out to the village square. There the two children sat drawing the map of their game in the dust, and Fawzooz watched them and said to himself, “The screen teaches, the square brings you up, and the two together make a little inventor.”