Artificial Intelligence Re-Creates whole Super Mario Game Just By Watching It

We have witnessed that AI systems autonomously playing complex games like DOTA 2 to defeat world champion players. But what would happen if there is an AI which doesn’t require anything to start with to build a complete game, not even the source code and instructions. Recently researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology conducted a successful experiment where the AI analyzes Super Mario gameplay and then recreated the game engine on its own without human help.

This specially trained AI doesn’t need to play the whole game, it just watches it and observes how it works. The output might not be in most precise form yet, but it’s a great achievement which is definitely first of its kind.

Gradually with time, the system tries to learn how the game works. Meanwhile, it makes small procedural rules based on the analysis which forms the foundation for creation of the game engine. For example, consider the scenario where Mario is just above a 'Goomba' in one frame, and then in the very next frame the Goomba Is gone. From this observation it deduced the rule that when Mario is just above the Goomba and his velocity is negative, Goomba vanishes.

Below is sample video by creators to show depict potentials of this AI system.

The researchers chose this specific game due to its 2D design and less complexity. The system with limited capacity is its early stages for now, but soon it might be able to handle 3D game also.

That time is near when these type of system would be able to recreate whole scenario by interpreting real-life situations.

Image & video credits: 1, 2