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This article was published on June 15, 2017

Microsoft AI sets Ms. Pac-Man record in latest blow to human superiority


Microsoft AI sets Ms. Pac-Man record in latest blow to human superiority Image by: Jim & Rachel McArthur

Anybody wanna see a Ms. Pac-Man kill screen? Okay, so the game doesn’t have a kill screen, but thanks to Microsoft we’re able to see what happens when someone, in this case something, scores one million points. Zero is what happens, as in the game flips over to a nil score.

Credit: Maluuba, Microsoft

While the end result may be anti-climactic, the fact that 35 years after the game’s release we finally have advanced technology enough to score one million points in Ms. Pac-Man is actually pretty cool.

Games may not be the most impressive way of demonstrating it, but this is another example of how teaching machines to learn can help us to break boundaries. Today it’s Ms. Pac-Man; tomorrow computers might be figuring out how to gobble up cancer cells in people instead of ghosts in machines.

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As artificial intelligence continues to develop we may eventually see an end to the comparisons between the feats of man and the feats of machine; which are one in the same, really. For now, however, anyone keeping score knows it isn’t looking good for team human.

Deep Blue beat us at chess, the robots have taken our money in poker, and our future overlords now own the top spot on Ms. Pac-Man. Take that meat-bags.

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