The technology that we casually call “artificial intelligence” is suddenly ubiquitous. It is used to “create” art dialogue and voicetexts, even video games! It’s nearly impossible to escape as we enter a dystopian future where generative technology seeks to threaten entire livelihoods (including those of Twitch streamers). But sometimes, while the discourse on AI can be tense, you discover something pretty cool. So let me introduce you to MarioGPT, an artificial intelligence tool that creates classics Super Mario Bros. Levels via text prompts.
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AI research started way back in the 1940s and 1950s and has seen a gradual rise ever since. Today, we’re plugging huge data sets into advanced generative technologies so we can customize and shape their outcomes. This brings us to our current discourse, where tools like ChatGPT and DALL-E are going mainstream. Simply entering a text prompt into an AI tool like Midjourney yields a machine-generated result that is selected from hundreds, if not thousands, of data sets. Ethical questions about property arise some even lead to lawsuits for copyright infringement
The same can be done for video games. Developed by a team of researchers from the University of Copenhagen, MarioGPT is a tool that can generate an endless amount of side-scrolling level layouts based on classics Super Mario Bros. Stages. According to Sebastian Risi, an AI researcher who worked on the project, the trained tool uses “a finely tuned GPT2 model” to gobble up text prompts and spit out layers that reflect something an actual human might create. risk noted on Twitter that while MarioGPT “sometimes” doesn’t create levels at a certain prompt, it “works well” in most other situations.
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my city asked Risi for a comment.
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Researchers posted an eight-page PDF He describes MarioGPT’s methodology, noting that the tool is likely “the first text-to-level model in existence”. According to the researchers, the goal is to “enable the unlimited generation of an increasingly diverse range of content” to address the challenges of creating procedurally generated games. There are a GitHub for the tech, which Python requires. You’ll need some technical expertise, but considering MarioGPT is available for free, anyone can pick it up, study the basics of the technology, and use it to create their own Super Mario Bros. levels. It’s like Super Mario Maker but powered by artificial intelligence.