Anon kept a Quake 3 Server running for 4 years, AI developed Sentience.

This post was originally created on 4chan, im not sure which category. The original screencap is attached. Enjoy

Quake 3 bots were designed based off an artificial neural network. They would effectively think based off an abstract neural network that worked and discarding the ones that didn't. They would see which tactics worked and which didn't, ensuring lessons that worked and carrying those on... The longer they played, the more they would learn about your patterns, and this would apply towards other bots as well. For all intents and purposes, they were one of the first learning AI in a game.

When I found this out I set up a quake 3 arena server on my pirating server, I set it to have 16 bots face each other over and over to see how good they would get. ... i set he server up 4 years ago, its been running the entire time, i forgot about it u til this thread, I'm gonna go check on them ...

Bones 09/26/11(Mon)22:43 No. 1116053850:
- my 9800GT feels like losing

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:45 No. 1116056190:
Huh, gee, I just checked on them but for some reason all the bots are just standing still. I'm gonna try changing the map (it was cycling through maps automatically but I guess it got stuck or something).

Bones 09/26/11(Mon)22:47 No. 1116058590:
Cool make sense, I'm not fully buying into this- but if what you said is true, the only winning move logically for them, is not to play.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:48 No. 1116059560:
They learnt that the only winning move was not to play.
YOUR PRECIOUS AI HAS GONE ON STRIKE, WHAT NOW PUPPET MASTER?

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:50 No. 1116060400:
Maybe they have learned that the best technique to survive is to make a peace and to stand there for an eternity, waiting for a purpose or salvation.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:51 No. 1116062590:
This.
Perhaps they think that a 0:0 KD ratio is better than the statistical inevitability of a 1:1 in all other situations.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:52 No. 1116063660:
They know when to fight and run, such as low health or weapons that can't win the situation for them.
I just changed the map and they keep standing still. I have a program that tracks player movements on the server and they're literally just standing there.
I'm gonna download quake 3 arena and see if they turn back on when I get back on the server. Give me a few minutes.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:52 No. 1116063711:
The Ultimate survival strategy developed over 4 years. Nobody dies if nobody kills

They achieved something we couldn't l.

World peace.

Sage 09/26/11(Mon)22:53 No. 1116064160:
If they had achieved the point where no tactics were usable against any opponent, they might just.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:55 No. 1116066160:
...bet they all kill you the second you enter, because you threaten their existence.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:56 No. 1116067650:
I'm 100% sure that if a human player (even the teammates) would kill the human just because they disturb the peace.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:57 No. 1116068030:
I actually really hope those bots kill the dude entering the server, and then go back to being at peace.
That would be proof they hit a point where they stopped killing each other.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)22:58 No. 1116068350:
hey server guy PLACE A NEW BOT. let's see what will happen to disrupt the peaceful run the balance! force them into a new endless war!

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:00 No. 1116071250:
don't know how to add new bots. I think I have to delete the log for one of the existing bots. On that note, I should check those after I'm done this.
Starting up quake 3 now, will report back in a minute if they kill me.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:03 No. 1116075460:
Ok, that was pretty fascinating. I joined the server and the bots still just stood there, but the f***ed up thing was they would react to rocket at me. I walked around a bit and they all just kept looking at me.

So, I grabbed a rail gun and fragged one of them, they all ran for the nearest weapons, took me down, and the server crashed.

...if I am really now what to say about that.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:11 No. 1116081190:
Teamingkilling f*****

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:19 No. 1116080070:
it was a teamless deathmatch server, which made it all the weirder when they didn't attack each other and went straight for me."

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:17 No. 1116080063:
Reload backup and see what happens. I'm willing to bet the bots memories were erased and if you load it back up they will be back to their normal selves.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:19 No. 1116086330:
...Oh god, I just checked the AI logs. Each bot has a separate .dat file...

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:22 No. 1116091060:
...want to believe, show me proof.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:40 No. 1116106160:
...Sorry, my server machine is acting slow as f*** right now, took me forever to get to this screen.

Anonymous 09/26/11(Mon)23:47 No. 1116110900:
They're not just lines of code; they're tactical logs based on what has worked and what hasn't worked in battle. For all intents and purposes they're memories.
Man, 512 MB PER BOT, 16 bots, it's 8 GB of information. The semi-sentient f****** should be glad I haven't decided to delete them for taking up space on my hard drive.

 

[LostintheCycle]

... and he didn't upload the files anywhere.

 

[Orlando Smooth]

I'm most curious how long it took them to get to this "standstill" state. If the post is to be believed, it had been running for something in the ballpark of 35,000 hours. I never played Quake myself, but I imagine that's a lot of matches. In another life I used recurrent models to study biological systems, primarily ecological but anything that had an element of game theory was able to be modeled by those systems. A defining characteristic can be how long it takes a system to reach its equilibrium. This could've happened in less than a day but OP just kept the server running all that time, or it could've taken years to get there.

 

[Venomnik0]

Its possible someone could replicate this easily. Just have a constant Quake 3 server for 4 years with just bots and see what happens. Then post the logs mf!

 

[Spookwave]

Fascinating. Unsure if it's even true because there's no recording of said bots behaving that way and it is only word of mouth and a screenshot of a large file but I would love to see that in action.
If I HAD to guess, mayhaps their AI brains/memories got clogged/stuck when they reached the limit (512mb) so they froze up. Then when he killed the one guy, it snapped them out of it for a second, cancelling the writing of said file and acting as a trigger of sorts (like how in Elden Ring enemies need to "Wake up" before they start fighting, which they normally do when you get close and enter their trigger zone). But then they went right back to trying to expand the file/write in new tactics, being unable to, and standing still. But that's just a theory and admittedly I also don't know much about how games like Quake 3 or their Ai work and process information. I just think it would be very odd for the AI to somehow come to such an impass, logically. But we will never know for sure unless someone decides to try and recreate it lol.

 

[Punp]

This has been a myth for a long time, and I'm glad the thread was recorded here for posterity. I can believe that an adversarial system could come to a standstill, but I think the users attributing spiritual intelligence really underscores why people aren't ready for technology.

Thanks for rehosting the thread.

 

[Ardea]

Plot twist - the bots just glitched out due to having confusing data from too many games

 

[mydadiscar]

I personally just find the replies funny, more than the bots' behaviour interesting. We should all apply the lessons we have learned from the quake three bots.

 

[RisingThumb]

Fascinating. Unsure if it's even true because there's no recording of said bots behaving that way and it is only word of mouth and a screenshot of a large file but I would love to see that in action.

Source code for the AI bots is here. Additionally if you want the words from the lead dev. Note that it's the stock AI. There's nothing stopping a server host from having artificial neural nets playing on them as if they are players... they'd have to be a good programmer, and make most of the artificial neural nets stuff theirselves. There's a few fanmade projects aiming to train a bot via neural net, but nothing that plays competitive Quake 3 currently


Since the post is from 2011, the OP was probably smoking weed and then the paranoia set in. I remember most of the rumors around Halo 3 were from absolutely drugged out bozos

 

[Venomnik0]

Plot twist - the bots just glitched out due to having confusing data from too many games

Actually that would be the most likely/rational result lmao

 

[Creechan12]

anon was only 2 weeks away from the AI making chudtopia.