Super Mario Advance Gets AI And Can Play Itself

Of all the games that Nintendo has produced over the years, the most popular is probably the Mario franchise. There are several games in this franchise including the old school Super Mario Advance game. Researchers from the University of Tubingen in Germany have given Mario in the game AI that allows him to play the game by himself according to how he is feeling.

The AI also allows Mario to respond to vocal commands and questions and experience emotions. The researchers used a speech recognition tool kit made at Carnegie Mellon to give Mario the ability to understand commands. Mario is able to perform different actions based on what he has learned when phrases from the toolkit language tree are spoken.

Mario is able to learn that jumping on a Goomba will kill it after being told the outcome or learning it on his own. When Mario is hungry, he will seek out coins and when he is curious, he explores the environment.

Mario is also able to plan out steps in advance. For instance when he is told to reach a difficult location in the game Mario is able to determine how many jumps he needs, how high he needs to jump, and in which direction he needs to jump. It sounds rather like the animated film Wreck-it Ralph.

SOURCE: CNET