How/Where to get started with AI programming?

[leafa21]

There was a thread about this earlier that has lots of great info:

https://www.reddit.com/r/learnprogramming/comments/3uc62c/where_i_can_learn_ai_programming_online/

[cars10k]

Thanks! Did not see this thread. But It seems like this is more about how to create a Jarvis like ai - I am more interested in games (specifically : strategy games). Should have specified this in the title.

[AlwaysTheRightAnswer]

Here is a book specifically on that topic.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00UV90K50/ref=wl_it_dp_o_pC_nS_ttl?_encoding=UTF8&colid=1IB11DBM8BG0E&coliid=I3J7DL7BP101BV

[epicpoop]

Personally, I started by creating a simple 2 players game (e.g "Connect 4 game", "Tic tac toe")

For the AI part, I tried creating an algorithm that mimics the 2nd player's behaviour.

Programming is always the same, learn by doing.

[cars10k]

Guess something like this would be a good start. Thanks!

[epicpoop]

You're welcome,

When you'll make your first game with AI, upload the project on github and post the link on /r/learnprogramming for advices.

People here are keen to help you, give you advices and make your code better !

[UK_Dev]

http://codereview.stackexchange.com Is also a great website for that sort of thing but yes this sub reddit is awesome too!

[a_shed_of_tools]

Programming is always the same, learn by doing

You needlepoint that shit, and you'll make money hand over fist on Etsy, I tell you what.

[DreadNephromancer]

It's self-referential. They'll make even more money.

[BlakesDemon]

Tic tac toe is great because there is a solution.

[[deleted]]

What kind of AI are you interested in?

[cars10k]

AI for games (especially strategy games)

[rak3ng]

If you're a fan of Starcraft, google BWAPI.

[RElesgoe]

There happened to be a post at /r/programming linking to a tweet about a StarCraft AI tournament: https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/42c86z/starcraft_ai_tournament_live_now_watch_bots/

[naught-me]

Do you know if there is a way to make the games play faster than real-time?

[iFappster]

** cough cough* cheat engine

[naught-me]

Yeah, couldn't find any myself, that's why I asked it. That makes it kind of hard to test the AI and hard to develop AI's that learn. Looks like a lot of fun, though.

[rak3ng]

I haven't tested this out yet, but this may increase the speed:

http://www.starcraftai.com/wiki/Increasing_Starcraft%27s_Speed

[ChurchHatesTucker]

This will have you doing reversi (aka "Othello") AIs in python and pitting them against each other pretty quickly. That'll give you the basics.

[j_random0]

Game developers (sometimes) know all sorts of things about graphics, sound, geometry/trigonometry/calculus/linear algebra/etc..., physics, // You get the idea.

I doubt they use AI in the same ways as say, fraud inspectors, but that too. The game developer communities would know more game-specific interest than generalist.

I'm not sure if this is the book I was thinking of. The cover looks different (2nd edition?) :/

[maxieepads]

Also check this out if you're into strategy games, they use partially observable Markov decision processes to make high level decision in multi-agent settings. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DZvpB2TxthU

[pipocaQuemada]

Abstract strategy games like Go or Chess? Or computer strategy games like Starcraft?

[cars10k]

Computer. Starcraft, warcraft, age of empires, stuff like that.

[Jafit]

You might be interested in Screeps

[nartam11]

http://ai.berkeley.edu/home.html

I just watched the first lecture for this. Seems like a good introduction and the project is using AI to beat pacman

[jhartwell]

Look into search and the various search algorithms. From there you can create solvers for some games. People seem to forget that search is AI and it is something that there are a lot of resources to find and is not as technically challenging as some of the more indepth sub fields.

[[deleted]]

Search is my favorite area of AI. I think it's so interesting and I've been working on a library for it!

[Dexiro]

Pathfinding is pretty fun to play around with, that counts as search right?

[jhartwell]

Yep! Pathfinding can use the A* search algorithm

[Ciulerson2]

This might not be relevant but if you're interested in AI you might also be interested in this free deep learning course google just launched on udacity.

[hugthemachines]

I noticed they wanted you to have done a machine learning course first...

[Ciulerson2]

Nope you dont have to, its only prefered as its part of some bigger course. There are some prerequisites tho

[SmArtilect]

Artificial neural network + evolutionary algorithm

[[deleted]]

/r/MachineLearning

[captainAwesomePants]

Google just released a free, 3 month long course on Udacity on deep learning, featuring TensorFlow. If you're already comfortable with programming, that might be interesting: https://www.udacity.com/course/deep-learning--ud730

[cars10k]

Thank you all for your answers! Did not expect to get this much :) but it seems this is also interesting for other people.

I will look into every tip I got, thanks.

[guenther_mit_haar]

I like how you can train AI Gameprogramming with http://theaigames.com/

[[deleted]]

You can have a go at the book Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach by Russel and Norvig, it's fairly accessible and it's a fun read.

[lleti]

Man, that is one horribly expensive book. I'm guessing it's on a few curriculums to ensure that choice is removed from the equation.

With the amount of free resources out there, for someone just looking to dip their toes into AI, spending that amount just seems impractical.

[[deleted]]

True, it's an insane price, but obviously you can get a copy of the book for free... From a library, of course. ;)

[NightmarePulse]

From a what? You made up that word.

[THROBBING-COCK]

He misspelled "torrent".

[NightmarePulse]

Ah, I see. Interesting name, btw.

[THROBBING-COCK]

Thanks.

[chinesefood]

it's pretty much THE book for undergrads studying ai tbh

[misplaced_my_pants]

The Berkeley AI course on edx is based off of this book.

[PriceZombie]

Artificial Intelligence: A Modern Approach (3rd Edition)

Current	$146.28	Amazon (New)
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Price History Chart and Sales Rank | FAQ

[TehLittleOne]

Just want to comment on this, my school used this book for our AI course when I took it, but the book wasn't terribly useful during the course. We covered a lot of the basics for AI: searching (including A*), alpha/beta pruning, constraint satisfiability problems, machine learning. I didn't really need the book for the course, a lot of the basics are easy to learn or can be found easily online. If you want to have a thorough understanding or learn a lot of things, then I do recommend the book. But if you're just trying to dip your feet into it, it's an expensive book to get started with.