Every year, 2K Games sponsors a special event known as the BotPrize. If you’re unfamiliar, here’s the gist: A bunch of programmers get together to create AI bots which then compete in Unreal Tournament 2004 matches with real-life players. The end goal is, of course, to win. But every competitor is also asked to tag foes as either humans or bots using a special “judging” gun.

The results this year? Two of the bots landed a 52% “humanness” rating, compared to the 40% “humanness” rating earned by real-life human beings. In other words, the real-life players competing in Unreal Tournament 2004 seemed more like bots than these two bots, and the two bots played (according to player judges) more like humans.

There’s some pretty cool information over on Edge—the original write-up covers the actual programming of the bots and how they managed to do what they do. As it turns out, they’re not necessarily designed to be smart so much as convincing.

If you’re into this sort of thing, it’s definitely worth a read. In the meantime, you may want to start treating your electronic devices a bit nicer—the inevitable robot revolution is now closer than ever.

[Edge]

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