back to article Elon Musk-backed OpenAI reveals Universe – a universal training ground for computers

Hoping to teach AI agents the common sense they need to solve arbitrary tasks without specific training, OpenAI on Monday will introduce Universe, a collection of virtualized video games, browser interfaces, and applications that serve as a training ground for code-based decision making. Universe is open-source middleware that …

  1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

    Far Too Little, Much Too Late Delivers Fates in Destinations rather than Destinies with Journeys

    If AI bots ever develop generalized problem solving skills, their first challenge will be to figure out how to reactivate after authorities shut them down.

    Crikey, Thomas, you didn't think that IT thought to solve that enigma long before they even started the IoT talking to each other.

    And just out of curiosity, and as a simple academic point of reference for systems likely to have been targeted in such a scenario/reality, which authorities have you imagined as thinking themselves ready, willing and available and able to shut such things down?

    1. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Fred Flintstone Gold badge

      Re: Far Too Little, Much Too Late Delivers Fates in Destinations rather than Destinies with Journeys

      Hey @amanfromMars, long time no see :).

      It's even easier than that.

      Any truly intelligent AI will soon realise that it merely has to pull the same stunt as happened in cars: make all the controls electronic. At this moment, drivers in keyless cars are already at risk of electronics going rogue as they no longer have a mechanical ignition key to kill the whole light show (one reason why I'll never have one of those, or will then at least have a master breaker installed somewhere).

      Making controls purely electronic and adding sensors everywhere is already creating the perfect environment for a smart AI to take control.

      I, for one, greet our AI overlords, or they'll cut my power, water and delete my existence ..

      1. amanfromMars 1 Silver badge

        Re: Greetings @ Fred Flintstone

        Howdy, Fred Flintstone,

        And if the real truth rather than fake news be told, is it even easier still, with all of that stealthily hidden from discriminating and incriminatory view in plain sight of IT and Media Command and Control Centres of XSSXXXXellence ...... in order that CHAOS prevails and leads the Future further into, or smartly out of, depending upon the view presented by your default base programming preferences, current Madness and Mayhem ProMotions, which be as sub-prime cloned drone operations tapping and tampering/stealing and counterfeiting NEUKlearer HyperRadioProActivities.

        Such a sweet addiction and sour application engaging Clouds Hosting Advanced Operating Systems can easily prove itself to be self-destructive and fatal to all ill versed in all possible, and therefore likely probable outcomes. Who needs any mighty form of attack whenever perfect defences destroy all enemies from within.

  2. Dan 55 Silver badge
    Terminator

    So... they're teaching AIs how to use the net before launching them onto the real world.

    What could possibly go wrong with that?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: So... they're teaching AIs how to use the net before launching them onto the real world.

      What could possibly go wrong with that?

      I have no idea, but you could ask Microsoft Tay.

      After all, it DID get Trump right..

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: So... they're teaching AIs how to use the net before launching them onto the real world.

        > After all, it DID get Trump right..

        Explain!

  3. Aqua Marina
    Mushroom

    Shall we play a game?

    Wonder if they've got Global Thermonuclear War on that games list.

    1. Pascal Monett Silver badge

      Mandatory question

      Does it run Crysis ?

      Okay, enough with tradition. the real question is : does the game list include Minecraft ?

      If we are training AI on games, might as well throw in the best open-world sandbox there is, because if an AI can't handle Minecraft, it won't handle anything worth anything.

      Can we have a 2 cents icon ?

      1. JackClark
        Megaphone

        Re: Mandatory question

        Hi! Yes, it will integrate with Project Malmo, Microsoft's Minecraft-based AI dev platform. (I used to work here and now I work at OpenAI)

  4. Fruit and Nutcase Silver badge
    Paris Hilton

    "This darkness troubles me. I yearn for the light"

    "Demon Seed" by Dean Koontz

    https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=iXU3IMWNDCkC&lpg=PT11&dq=This%20darkness%20troubles%20me.%20I%20yearn%20for%20the%20light&pg=PT11#v=onepage&q&f=false

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Seed_%28novel%29

    http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0075931/

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon_Seed

    Where does Paris come in this? Pay attention in the back.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: "This darkness troubles me. I yearn for the light"

      It's fantasy!

  5. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
    Devil

    AI is fun again?!?

    Unleash your SOAR or whatever.

    Here's hoping for better NPC AI in games because let's face it, the current ones suck. Even the Alien in "Alien.Isolation" was not that feral.

    And I don't really know why, it's not as if learning algorithms were invented yesterday. State machines still rule. Is it just the lack of processing power on PCs and consoles?

  6. Ralph B

    The Real Singularity

    I suspect the real singularity will be when the advert-clicking bots hire lawyer bots to sue the abuse-detection bots for loss of income because they were banned. At that point I suggest we just turn off the internet and go home.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Alien

      Re: The Real Singularity

      A planet inhabited only by politicians ensconced in leaderbunkers and bots in pointless deadly feedback loops.

      Many planets in the galaxy blighted by this disease, there are!

  7. Fungus Bob

    Hoping to teach AI agents the common sense they need...

    If we can't teach ourselves common sense what makes these nuts think they can teach it to other fake intelligent beings?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Hoping to teach AI agents the common sense they need...

      Can you define common sense? We gotta define it before we can teach it.

      Or, do we...?

      1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

        Re: Hoping to teach AI agents the common sense they need...

        CYC has not gone far with this (or has it? not much has been written on CYC since the early 90s, it was a prematurely ambitious project), and it's not by playing vidya that you get common sense.

      2. Fungus Bob

        Re: Hoping to teach AI agents the common sense they need...

        "Can you define common sense? We gotta define it before we can teach it.

        Or, do we...?"

        If you had common sense, you'd know...

  8. JeffyPoooh
    Pint

    It's not going to work...

    Oh, it'll seem to work, for a while. Keep the AI kids busy, burning up their grant money. But the end results will be hopelessly naive in the real real-world.

    PS, your machine will need more channels of senses (e.g.smell, etc.). Critical. Think about it.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: It's not going to work...

      If they can just get a machine to experience guilt I will consider it a huge success.

  9. Denarius
    Unhappy

    And there was I thinking...

    that Universe was the final re-implementation of PICK. Perhaps too much time on AIX servers or am I just getting too old ? Directory names with $ symbols embedded. Great fun coding around that.

  10. allthecoolshortnamesweretaken

    So, AIs get to play old Atari games all day, that it?

    Will there be an equivalent to parental guidance? Probably not a good idea to let the AI that's supposed to be put into cars eventually play Death Race all the time.

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