Doctors Paul Wake and Sam Illingworth
“Analogue AI” is a term, along with “paper AI”, that crops up from time to time in discussions of tabletop games – particularly those offering co-op and solo play – and one that invites further investigation. Artificial intelligence – surely that’s to do with digital stuff, right?
So, what is AI? According to the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council: “Artificial Intelligence technologies aim to reproduce or surpass abilities (in computational systems) that would require ‘intelligence’ if humans were to perform them. These include: learning and adaptation; sensory understanding and interaction; reasoning and planning; optimisation of procedures and parameters; autonomy; creativity; and extracting knowledge and predictions from large, diverse digital data.” While discussions of AI do tend towards the digital, there is nothing in this definition that specifically excludes analogue technologies; ‘computational systems’ does not mean computers in the most popular sense of the word and certainly there are aspects of this definition that might prove useful to those of us seeking to discuss (or design) tabletop games.