Reflections on the Human-Level AI Conference 2018

SUMMARY

• This month GoodAI organized the Human-Level AI Conference in Prague. 
• Over 500 people attended to see over 40 speakers. 
• I met some great people and had some excellent discussions and would like to thank everyone involved.

---

GoodAI team, conference chair Tarek Besold and the AI Safety panel share the stage at the end of the conference.

This month over 500 people attended the Human-Level AI Conference in Prague, which was organised by the team at GoodAI. The attendees got the opportunity to see over 40 experts in the AI field covering a wide range of topics.

The conference was a combination of three established conferences AGI, BICA and NeSy, as well as an extra Future of AI Track aimed at a wider audience.

The range of issues discussed was extremely impressive, from detailed research on human-level AI to issues such as AI safety, societal impacts and investment.

The conference truly exceeded my expectations. The quality of the keynote talks was fantastic, the media coverage (see a few examples in Czech and English below) was extremely wide and the atmosphere was very warm and welcoming. Both participants and speakers seemed to enjoy themselves very much! 

Dileep George (Vicarious) delivering a keynote at HLAI 2018

One of the highlights for me was welcoming the finalists of our Solving the AI Race round of the General AI Challenge to take part in the AI Race and Societal Impacts panel. You can read about some of the discussions surrounding whether to publish an evil AI in Futurism. 

One of the things that made the sessions, and the conference as a whole, so interesting was the diverse group of contributors sharing their different approaches to general AI or human-level AI. We had representatives from some of the top tech companies (Microsoft, Google DeepMind, Uber AI Labs, Facebook AI Research and more), from the top global academic institutes (University of Cambridge, Harvard, John Hopkins, University of New York, UCL and more), from international organisations (United Nations, DARPA, Aspen Institute and more) and from exciting private sector organisations (ARAYA, Vicarious, SingularityNET, Zeroth.AI to name a few).

It was this diversity and representation from across the world that added real value to the lively discussions. However, it was not just in the official sessions that I found such thought-provoking people. We were lucky to have a brilliant selection of volunteers helping us coordinate the conference and the participants too were extremely interesting. I had many fascinating conversations and my only regret is that I did not have time to talk more with all of our friends and participants.

The Investing in AGI panel

Throughout the conference I felt like I was constantly exchanging ideas and learning, from the sessions and the social activities. It was inspirational to see so many people with a genuine interest in general AI / human-level AI.

AI enthusiasts enjoying Hybernia Theatre

I would like to send a huge thank you out to everyone involved in this conference. I would like to thank my team at GoodAI, especially Olga Afanasjeva, Daria Hvizdalova, Will Millership, Marek Havrda, Tomas Strouhal and Lucie Krestova, who all worked tirelessly putting it together. My big thanks also belongs to Tarek Besold, the conference chair, who did an excellent job of making people feel at home. I would also like to thank the speakers who flew in from around the world, our volunteers, our sponsors, community partners and media partners, everyone at AGI, BICA and NeSy, and finally all the AI enthusiasts who visited the conference!

You can now watch all keynotes and AGI sessions as well as a selection of videos from the AI Race & Societal Impacts session.

Thanks for reading,

Marek Rosa

CEO, CTO, Founder at GoodAI

CEO, Creative Director, Founder at Keen Software House

For more news:

Space Engineers: www.SpaceEngineersGame.com

Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com

General AI Challenge: www.General-AI-Challenge.org
AI Roadmap Institute: www.RoadmapInstitute.org
GoodAI: www.GoodAI.com
Keen Software House: www.keenswh.com

Personal bio:

Marek Rosa is the CEO and CTO of GoodAI, a general artificial intelligence R&D company, and the CEO and founder of Keen Software House, an independent game development studio best known for their best-seller Space Engineers (2.5mil+ copies sold). Both companies are based in Prague, Czech Republic. 

Marek has been interested in artificial intelligence since childhood. Marek started his career as a programmer but later transitioned to a leadership role. After the success of the Keen Software House titles, Marek was able to personally fund GoodAI, his new general AI research company building human-level artificial intelligence. 

GoodAI started in January 2014 and has grown to an international team of 20 researchers. At this time, Marek is developing both Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers as well as daily research and development on recursive self-improvement based general AI architecture.

Medieval Engineers Update 0.6.4: Major Overhaul of Combat

SUMMARY:

• Major Combat Overhaul
• HUD and Chat Improvements
• New Sounds and Environmental Ambience

---

Hello, Engineers!

Medieval history has countless examples of conflict and war. For this reason, combat has always been part of my plan for Medieval Engineers. In this update, we are creating combat mechanics to make fighting more intense and exciting for players. In the future, we will polish it even further with the introduction of more decals and enticing particle effects!

Improved Combat System

I want to start talking about the combat system by saying there are a few core ideas that are driving our design.

“Combat shouldn’t take away from engineering.”
This is the primary idea that is reinforced by all of the other ideas. I see engineering as the core of our gameplay because it’s what makes engineers games different from similar games.

“Combat should be easy to learn.”
There shouldn’t be new controls, purposefully difficult timings, or combination moves to make fighting harder than it has to be. You should understand it well enough after only a few minutes of practice.

“Combat should rely mostly on skill to win.”
Winning should always be possible if you are more skilled than your opponent.

“Combat should be short.”
You shouldn’t have to spend a lot of time on combat if you don’t want to.

The only advantages that you can bring into combat are better equipment and more health.

The combat system is still based on attacking and blocking but it is enhanced to provide a greater variety of attacks and blocks. There are three zones around each character that can be attacked and defended, which creates a directional approach to combat. There are two kinds of attack: standard and charged. Charged attacks are more powerful than standard ones but they are also slower because you have to spend time charging them. You can defend two of your zones at once using a shield. This makes defense easier, but shields take damage quickly and they can block your vision of the enemy...

Combat makes use of the stats system introduced in our last update. Attacking or successfully blocking will use stamina similar to how it did before, but now there is an additional adrenaline effect. When you are fighting you will hear your heart beating and your vision will narrow. This is the adrenaline effect which makes your attacks and blocks faster than usual. If you build up more adrenaline than your enemy you will be faster, but it will fade quickly if there’s a break in the fight.

The part of combat that makes zones possible is target-locking. Since our goal was to keep the controls simple there is no button to lock onto a target. Equipping a weapon, attacking someone, or being attacked will cause you to go into a combat mode. In this combat mode you will be able to lock onto anyone you look at. This is a ‘soft lock’, meaning that you can break it easily by looking away or by moving out of range. While you are locked your character and camera will track the enemy and you will be able to aim attacks and blocks. You can also strafe to the left and the right and remain locked onto your target.

 

HUD and Chat Improvements

All of these combat changes touch on many other parts of the game, which we have been improving at the same time. Our barbarian AI had to be updated to use the combat system, so we took the opportunity to streamline the barbarian behavior. They now focus much more on players and less on attacking blocks. You will want to make sure that you protect your spawn points because the barbarians won’t give up.

Parts of the HUD are being updated to display the new combat reticle. I want the HUD to look good and be easy to read, so we are also updating the quest and chat displays with larger text and dark backgrounds to to make them easier to read. The chat is also being upgraded with a movable and resizable window, a scrollable history, and new channels for local, house, and private messages.

...and more!

I’m always paying attention to how the game looks and feels, which is why I wanted new combat animations and sounds. While we were making them we had to develop some new options for our animation controller and some new ways to define how sounds are used. This gave us the foundation we need so that we can add environmental-based sounds and music. This means biome-specific background sounds and even combat music!

We are giving you additional features for server admins, things like a remote API to monitor your servers similar to the one in Space Engineers, chat logging and offline chat to keep up with players, and a message of the day to announce rules and events.  For modders we have updates to subparts, new definitions for biomes, and updated entity effects. The new chat channels are moddable and all of the new combat related features are available for use in your mods.

List of New Features:

• New combat system
• Resources rebalanced for faster gathering and building
• HUD improvements for chat and readability
• Toolbar behavior improvements

For Modders:

• Updated subpart system
• New biome definition format
• New chat system with moddable channels
• New entity effects

For Server Admins:

• Message of the Day
• Chat logging
• Remote API and VRage Remote Client

Read the full list of new features at http://news.medievalengineers.com/update_0_6_4/patch_0
Purchase your copy

New Support Community

We welcome all feedback from our community and that’s why we have decided to launch a new support portal. This is where you can provide feedback and find support for all our games in one place. The portal should be a single destination for all your ideas, issues, and technical support needs. You can find it at: https://support.keenswh.com/

Medieval Engineers is still in development. Everything in the game is subject to change.

Marek Rosa
CEO, Creative Director, Founder at Keen Software House
CEO, CTO, Founder at GoodAI

For more news:
Space Engineers: www.SpaceEngineersGame.com
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
General AI Challenge: www.General-AI-Challenge.org
AI Roadmap Institute: www.RoadmapInstitute.org
GoodAI: www.GoodAI.com
Keen Software House: www.keenswh.com

Personal bio:
Marek Rosa is the CEO and CTO of GoodAI, a general artificial intelligence company, and the CEO and founder of Keen Software House, an independent game development studio best known for their best-seller Space Engineers (2.5mil+ copies sold). Both companies are based in Prague, Czech Republic.

Marek has been interested in artificial intelligence since childhood. Marek started his career as a programmer but later transitioned to a leadership role. After the success of the Keen Software House titles, Marek was able to personally fund GoodAI, his new general AI research company building human-level artificial intelligence.

GoodAI started in January 2014 and has grown to an international team of 20 researchers. At this time, Marek is developing both Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers as well as daily research and development on recursive self-improvement based general AI architecture.

Medieval Engineers Banner Contest

SUMMARY:

• Starting today, August 3rd, 2018 and ending on August 13th, 2018
• Create your custom banner and have it immortalized into the game.

---

Hello Engineers!

As preparation for our next release we’ve decided that it’s time again to kick off the next banner contest! The last time we ran this contest we were amazed by the amount of interesting banner designs we received from players, and now we want to give you guys another chance to get your own banner designs immortalized into the game!

To provide some inspiration, here are the winning designs from the previous banner contest:

SaturaxCZ

Szudrix

OmEgA_StOrM

This contest is open for anyone who wants to participate, including the participants from the last time we ran the banner contest. From the submitted entries, we will select our 5 favourites, which will be added into the game with the release of Medieval Engineers 0.6.4. The winners will be announced on the the release stream.

You can enter as many times as you like, but we will only pick one entry per player. An entry consists of the following documents:

• A screenshot of how your banner looks in the game.
• A background image, 512x512 PNG file.
• A foreground image, 512x512 PNG file.

You can follow the official banner modding guide to learn how to put your banner into the game.

General Info

• Each player can submit as many entries as they like, but you can only win once.
• We will pick 5 winners from the submissions.
• Deadline for submissions is August 13th, 2018.
• Screenshot should have a minimum resolution of 1080p, but the higher the better! 4K and above would be great!
• The banner images should be 512x512 pixels, PNG format.
• Avoid using copyrighted material in your banner designs.
• By entering the contest, you agree to follow all rules of the contest. If you don't submit according to the rules, you can be disqualified.
• All entries of the contest become the property of Keen Software House. This means we have the right to use and modify your entries in our game, on social media, on our websites, etc.
• We reserve the right to modify, cancel, or postpone the contest for any reason.

Prizes

• The selected winners will have their banner included in the game.

How to submit your banners

• Send a zip file containing the screenshot(s), and the banner layers, to our email: press@keenswh.com with the subject “Medieval Engineers Banner Contest”.
• The deadline for submissions is August 13th, 2018.

Thanks for reading and we look forward to seeing what you create!

Medieval Engineers is still in development. Everything in the game is subject to change.

Marek Rosa
CEO, Creative Director, Founder at Keen Software House
CEO, CTO, Founder at GoodAI

For more news:
Space Engineers: www.SpaceEngineersGame.com
Medieval Engineers: www.MedievalEngineers.com
General AI Challenge: www.General-AI-Challenge.org
AI Roadmap Institute: www.RoadmapInstitute.org
GoodAI: www.GoodAI.com
Keen Software House: www.keenswh.com

Personal bio:
Marek Rosa is the CEO and CTO of GoodAI, a general artificial intelligence company, and the CEO and founder of Keen Software House, an independent game development studio best known for their best-seller Space Engineers (2.5mil+ copies sold). Both companies are based in Prague, Czech Republic.

Marek has been interested in artificial intelligence since childhood. Marek started his career as a programmer but later transitioned to a leadership role. After the success of the Keen Software House titles, Marek was able to personally fund GoodAI, his new general AI research company building human-level artificial intelligence.

GoodAI started in January 2014 and has grown to an international team of 20 researchers. At this time, Marek is developing both Space Engineers and Medieval Engineers as well as daily research and development on recursive self-improvement based general AI architecture.