I Declare War

"International Wars has reached 1 million downloads, Ben!" exclaimed my friend Mike, with whom I've been developing a real-time strategy game for Android users. He has been keeping his eyes on downloads for so long that his eyes were starting to glitter.

"Great news," I replied trying to hold my excitement.

"Indeed. I can’t believe we've done this," Mike looked off the computer screen to see my reaction.

But my reaction clearly didn't match up with his expectations since, having looked at the stats of Google Play on the screen, I recalled what we still had to do. A big change in our single player game mode. We now have to improve the AI during offline games. This what made people leave 2 or 3-star reviews. While multiplayer games were enjoyable as behind those players were actual people, single player games were rather dull and predictable since they were full of bots carrying out very simple commands.

"Mike, you go and rest. Next week, we will get back to work because of that 3.9 rating you see right next to the 1 million downloads. Meanwhile, try to think of some ways we can make bots more interesting and different."

"Alright, Ben," he nodded standing up and feeling still rather ebullient by the download numbers than saddened by my reaction.

Knowing how good and creative of a programmer he is, I was sure after a day or two he will come back down from the clouds he’s on right now and come up with a way to spice up the game.

***

Four days into the holiday, at around 1 am, my screen beamed brightly up into the white ceiling. Though I was lying on my bed, I was not asleep yet. Having picked up the phone, I checked my notifications and Mike’s message said:

           “I came up with a code that could make different types of AI bots. When could we meet up to discuss this together?” He was online like me as well. Apparently waiting for my response before going to sleep.

           “You can come to me tomorrow at any time you want. I have not had anything to do these 4 days.” I typed.

“Alright. I’ll see you at 12 pm” he replied within a fairly short time.

The next two hours of my “sleep” was spent imagining how cool his new addition to the game is going to be and how he was able to make it.

***

           “Bang! Bang! Bang!” Knocks came thrice when I woke up.

           “I’m here, mate! Wait a sec!” I rushed to put on my shirt and trousers as I was still hearing the continuous knocks. Having tumbled out of the house, I lifted the latch with all the morning power I had.

           “Have you just woken up?” said Mike, having looked at my choice of clothes from slippers to a white undershirt.

           “Well, yeah. Sorry for that. I only fell asleep hours after your message.”

           Mike has visited my house multiple times when I could not be bothered to go anywhere. So, he was familiar with my residence. As we came in, not having come closer to the table, he was already unpacking his bag and getting his laptop out. Out of impatience to see what my friend has developed, I decided to fill only half a litre of water into the kettle.

           “Ben, come here” I ran up to the computer from the kitchen, as Mike continued “So now we’ve got different types of bots. Some are more aggressive, some are less. Some are willing to help others and some are not. But another novelty is the fact that they can now send messages in this chat box over here on the left.” He pointed at the chat box on the left part of the screen. “I taught them some words so now they can construct their own messages because they know the meanings of those words.”

           “That is insane, mate!” I could not hold my excitement any longer. I wanted to kick him from the chair and try out the game myself.

           “Well, now you can try it. But I’ll have to leave since I’ve got an appointment at the dentist’s in an hour.”

           I saw him off with a toothy smile on my face and praised him for the incredible work he’s done.

“An incredible work indeed!” I exclaimed as he drove off.

           It was already almost 11 pm but I was full of energy as if it was morning. The types of messages the bots sent were: “Give 1000 coins”, “Need help”, “SOS”, “Attack Bot 7”. After one hour of playing, I realised how dull those repetitive phrases were.

“Why don’t I introduce more words to enhance the conversations?” I wondered. “If I introduce words as betrayal or betray, will they learn how to do that?”

I decided to test that. Having introduced more complex words like “want”, “betray”, “independent” and others more, I was not sure how they were going to act. Or if they are going to alter their behaviour at all.

Seeing the hour hand of the clock above my bed reach 2 am did not discourage me carrying out this test. I logged in to the game, started playing a single player mode. Everything was normal.

“We welcome you, Ben” was the first comment from an ally bot, which was not surprising as I set this exact sentence as the first message a player is supposed to receive.

But 10 minutes into the game, I experienced the “betrayal” I taught them myself.

“I declare war on you” said Bot 5 who has been friendly to me the whole game.

“Why?” asked I hoping for interesting response from the AI.

“Because you did not help me, when Bot 8 did help me,” was the response it gave to me. I couldn’t wait for the actions the bot was going to take.

5 minutes later, nothing still happened.

“Guess it does not work. It will still be on my side,” I thought, having lost any interest in continuing the game. Then, , out of the blue, 2 armies -of both my ex-ally and my enemy – showed up from two sides of my city, leaving no way to escape the war. I simply watched them destroy me together. As it was my only city, the game ended.

“This AI is incredible!” I exclaimed in my mind “I may need to teach it more stuff” I thought imagining how further it can be taken. “But… Can it learn to change the game itself? Can it accidentally learn make its own virus that can spread to people’s computers because it thinks mankind treated it bad? Is there any chance of it getting out of the game code and taking control of the computer itself?”

I wondered about those possibilities until I noticed the light striking me from a chink in the curtains. It was 6 am. Time to go to unsought, yet necessary sleep.