Computers that think

Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the name computer scientists have given to their attempts at simulating human-like thought, and sometimes learning, in one or more computers. AI has a long history with games, with one of the most famous examples being the 1997 match between chess world champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's Deep Blue chess-playing computer. Deep Blue defeated Kasparov, while many of us re-watched Terminator 2: Judgment Day and trembled.

AI programming is a very complex and ever-evolving discipline. It's what makes first person shooter enemies shoot at you from behind cover. It's the engine behind the parsers in text adventure games. It's the driving force behind every non-human video game opponent you've ever faced. In this chapter, you'll create a simple 2-player Tic Tac Toe (Noughts and Crosses, X's and O's) game suitable for a pair of humans. In the following chapter, you'll program an artificially intelligent computer opponent to square off against a human...