# AI Researchers, Video Games Are Your Friends!

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/1612.01608 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/1612.01608/

## Key facts

- Cited by 4 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 6 Dec 2016.

## Built on by (most cited first, 4 of 4)

- [Deceptive Level Generation for Angry Birds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2106.01639/) (2021)
- [The Dota 2 Bot Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.02943/) (2021)
- [Introducing Tales of Tribute AI Competition](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.08234/) (2023)
- [Games of Knightian Uncertainty as AGI testbeds](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2406.18178/) (2024)

## Abstract (arXiv)

If you are an artificial intelligence researcher, you should look to video games as ideal testbeds for the work you do. If you are a video game developer, you should look to AI for the technology that makes completely new types of games possible. This chapter lays out the case for both of these propositions. It asks the question "what can video games do for AI", and discusses how in particular general video game playing is the ideal testbed for artificial general intelligence research. It then asks the question "what can AI do for video games", and lays out a vision for what video games might look like if we had significantly more advanced AI at our disposal. The chapter is based on my keynote at IJCCI 2015, and is written in an attempt to be accessible to a broad audience.