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'Quake III Arena' Bots Decide to Stop Fighting After 4-Year Match (2013)

forbes.com

19 points by andreasklinger 6 years ago · 13 comments

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kken 6 years ago

So it is a forbes article that is based on an imageboard screenshot. I have seen more reputable sources...

self_awareness 6 years ago

"The only winning move is not to play"

Too bad the story is made up, the author does reference Fox Mulder and the phrase "I want to believe".

  • antman 6 years ago

    “The only move is not to play” is from the 1983 movie “War games” whose theme is a kid hacks into a government computer that controls nuclear weapons, the computer almost starts a nuclear war but stops short after running simulated scenarios which all lead to total annihilation.

    https://youtu.be/NHWjlCaIrQo it’s on the monitor at 3:40

  • Jaruzel 6 years ago

    > "The only winning move is not to play"

    Exactly this. War Games showed this theorem back in 1983. I would hazard a guess that Joshua's statement inspired this 'fake' story.

  • mercer 6 years ago

    Reminds me of the Tetris AI that just paused the game so it wouldn't lose.

pfundstein 6 years ago

Sounds like a bug caused the bots to stop targeting each other, and shooting one simply triggered some "return fire" function. Not sure why this article based on an image board post is news, but here we are.

rgoulter 6 years ago

A quick search reveals this. https://www.businessinsider.com/bots-in-quake-iii-arena-game...

It's still a cute story, though.

ageitgey 6 years ago

If you read the image board thread the article links to, it's immediately obvious that this is 100% fake. The first line claims Quake III Arena (1999) is using neural networks for bot AI which is total nonsense.

lbj 6 years ago

Without proof a discussion on whether or not a simple rule based ai discovered the secret to world peace seems premature :)

rcarmo 6 years ago

None of it makes actual sense as you can’t know what is happening on the server without logging in.

aspenmayer 6 years ago

This reminds me of Total Pacifism, a fictional theory of diplomacy, from Gundam Wing.

hyperion2010 6 years ago

World peace achieved in such a way might only work when anyone showing the first signs of violence is immediately and collectively targeted for punishment by everyone else. That would suggests that sanctions _do_ work, but only in some strange kind of Stalinist way, or worse, sanctions don't work, and you have to wipe out the whole country and move in. I'm guessing these interpretations don't translate all that well to collective societies like those formed by human beings.

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