Spring RTS Engine

Indeed a great change AF. I have come into this in the middle, so I don't know much history. In one of the essays published with Cathedral and the Bazaar, there was a comparison between the fragmented warez groups and the open source movement in general. The warez groups were criticized because they didn't share their techniques, only the binary files. Within fragmented groups, they shared information after people proved themselves. By eliminating open peer review (probably for legal reasons) they made the knowledge pool smaller.

I see the same thing with AI researchers. I have chatted with Eliezer (Friendly Bayes AI), Ben Goertzel (Medical research paper AI-commercial), and people from Stanford (lingustic sciences AI), UCSD (Natural Language reading/communication), etc about AI. Most are *very* secretive about their techniques. The AI people were never mentioned in C&B but the closest analogue was the warez groups in terms of secrecy. I proposed some concepts, which were quickly ridiculed and then announced as original ideas by the very same people. AF: I know how you feel on concept stealing. But if we let that defeat us, then we work privately and secluded.

Eliezer introduced me to Bayesian Calculations for AI, he didn't like my systems theory ideas. *shrug* He claimed a direct variation of segmented language processing as his own (thesaurus on key object and action words, which I had described as expressive nouns and verbs). Realistically it wasn't innovative, but it still stung.

What I decided to do was move on, and find another Bazaar to shop and share. They don't actually write code in that camp anyway. Thank you for publishing Alantai! The section in your code I look forward to reading most is "Credits" and seeing what I can contribute.

Alantai Firestar wrote:The class never crashes, it just sometimes palces fluke mexes. To see why viw the thread I started on it. Eitherway I'm sick fo commentign on people attacking my spelling. It's a waste fo time that detracts em from posting abotu important stuff

Aw, I only do it because I'm jelous

Jealous of what? For the last few months in ym perspective, everyone else has been holding the cards, and my very reputation and what people thought of me aswell as NTAI where threatened by the likes of JCAI and other AI projects. I thoguth endlessly about it in my usual pseudo strategic way, feeling betrayed and battered.

This community was double sided. Those who wanted it liked what I was saying untill other people capable of providing it came too, then they either liked me or distrust set in. I remember JCAI coming out for the first time and before I had even read the thread people had said thigns about me which i found offending and hurtful, maybe they hadnt seen. So no wonder I post defensively, no doubt making it all worse for myself in the progress.

People have lost sight of the original view. The view I had that I thought everybody else had. I thought we had a single grand unified AI project, one where everybody would work together and collaborate. I thought and thought and posted lots of theory. Instead this was frowned upon and people decided to start their won projects.

People either saw them as too long, boring dreary implementation & analysis documents specifying each and every stage of the cosntruction of an AI proposal, when they werent at all.


Nobody is collaborating anymore, everyone in AI dev is in there because they have there own agenda and their own seperate project they guard behidn lock and key till a release comes around.

I'm tired of fighting an 'AI Coldwar', I might aswell lay my cards out on the table and hope everybody else follows suite. Nobody posts ideas anymore, nobody discusses things. For that I had to cherry pick out fromt he forum epople I thought would give feedback rather than simpyl ndo and say that sounds good keep up the good work. Then the riffraff here, I'm tired of ideas turning into flamewars, it's why i setup darkstars.co.uk in the first place.

I'll start posting my plans I had for NTAI 0.4 and 0.5, the ones I've got mapped in ym head, that should show a change in approach for me and just how far I've been willing to go to beat the competition and protect whatever gains I'd made. Maybe instead we could go there together? Have the first AI project that wasnt totally in the hands of one person? I dotn think anybody would like to see NTAI paused indefinately if I left for a while.

Things need to change, they need to change badly.

agreed. stock stockpiling code start making love (and more code )

If Min3mat is involved, in the making love, I'm taking a vow of chastity.

I thought we had a single grand unified AI project, one where everybody would work together and collaborate.

I wanted that for a while too, but then realised that AI developers come here with the idea to make an AI of their own. That's just it, people want to do it themselfs, including me.

That said, I also don't like the way things go in the AI forum, it's partly the reason why I stopped for a while to do general spring stuff.
It's partly your fault though...

Any wodner I stopped releasing code to NTAI? Maybe I was paranoid the competition would take what I had and apss it off as their own and claim they did it first, I wanted NTAI to be succesful for the most part and I felt that keeping evrythign open was damaging, especially when everyone else was keeping quiet too.

And now I see my code modified in your classes. This may seem like nitpicking, but the least you can do is credit me. Instead you try to redicule my AI as much as possible, especially when you released the first ntai... constantly claiming jcai didn't do anything while other people reported good results, and how ntai was so much better in every way. I really lost any urge to give you any hint about ai dev, like I did before that.
I like how discussion goes with cain and submarine, but you somehow just always feel the need to talk yourself up and the other people down...

I felt the need to be highly defensive.

I had modified JCAI code in my NTAI dv folder. Modified code in files that where not compiled, and where not released because they where experiments, and onyl experiments.

The onyl class I've actively gone to use that I've not written myself was cains mex class, and perhaps the one that lets me create a vector cotnianer out of a string formatted such as "a, b, c". And I gave credit to cain, and that latter one was never included in any versions released, it was added post 0.27.

If I am in a situation where someone else releases an AI and I'm not ready and have yet to do a decent AI post, and people start slandering me and you do nothing about ti and in cses even support them, I am going to be hurt and I am going to act defensively. Infact look at posts I've made whcih i admit caused some problems, and see what immediatly preceeded them! I liked how things used to go with cain, I like how they are with triaxx, I liked how they went when I used to talk to you, but whenever problems have arisen the onyl person willing to resolve has been triaxx, the only one who'll defend my position has been triaxx and I respect that immensely. When ti comes to you and cain I feel used, as if I was used untill you had a problem at which point you discarded, you had no regard for me and didnt try and understand me at all.

That said, I also don't like the way things go in the AI forum, it's partly the reason why I stopped for a while to do general spring stuff.
It's partly your fault though...

me too, I didnt like it so much I started darkstars.co.uk to get away from ti and get to what i thought was needed, good discussion and feedback over ideas. If you or anyone elses changes thigns, I shall react to it, everybody shall react to it. To say that I made thigns bad is putting all the blame on em adn yes I can see why I accelerated things a lot in some problems. But to blame me for the way thigns have turned out is outright unfair.

I dont like how if I suggest something it gets ridiculed and I get flamed, yet a week or more later somebody else starts a new thread with the same idea, and they get a positive reaction back and praise for it.

I dont like it how I may make a comment or an idea in a thread and people skip over ti and then post the same idea further down and it gets noticed and nobody even looks or gives any form of recognition for what I've said.

I dont like how people continuosly slander me and expect me not to react then use my reactions and twist them to their own ends of painting a bad picture of me.

Why did cain nto cotnact me instead of posting a rant on the forum and clear the whole thign up? A simple misunderstanding of how what i saw as one thign was seen as an attack by him.

Zaphod by letting people talk about em and slander me in your AI topics unhidnered you invited a comment by me, and you showed me that you didnt respect me whatsoever. As a result my respect for you went into freefall and I encouraged anti-JCAI comments in TAI threads, because I knew that I and TAI where being slandered in your threads and you where quite happy to do ntohign about it. Ideally in the first place if I where you I would have posted comments telling them to keep to JCAI only and to shutup about alantai and TAI.

And what about cain again? He showed no respect for me after that, he gave out the message that ti wasnt worth reconciling what differences he had with me, not even to straighten out the misunderstanding. He thought only of himself, his reputation for good code, his standing in the community, he totally forgot, My attempt to help, and turned it into Alantais vendetta against everybody else.

So what would you have done zaphod if you had bene coding on JCAI and released the source seeing that you had a lack fo experience and didnt knwo enough to produce a good AI quickly. Then lo and behold I rlease TAI and it's much much better than JCAI. People start saying thigns abotu how JCAI was never terrible and how bad you are and how much better TAI is. I do nothign to stop this for ti might hurt your feelings but I have no sense of that. If anythign I encourage pro-TAI movement at the cost fo Anti-JCAI, and I'm shocked when you retaliate against negative comments. I see this as an act of war against me, I see it as you being arrogant and jealous, and I say that as proof of you being so. I dont try and see why you're doign what your doing and I dont realise that people are rubbing TAI in your face and telling you you did a crappy job.

Swap TAI and Alantai for Zaphod and JCAI.

I made progress, people built ontop and kicked me in the teeth. People said hello, gave feedback, listened, then buggered off at the first sign of trouble. They called me names, they trampled over me. To a lot of people I was just a wannabee. Well I ahve NTAI now, I did what i said I'd do, and I'm happy I've gotten the experience.

Maybe if you had been more like triaxx was to me there would be a grand unified AI project. If triaxx had asked for the whole NTAI source folder at any one point I'd have given him it, give ro take a few days to get it to him, no questions asked. I trust him more than any of you because he's earned my respect.

Now I dont think we'll all be holding hands over night. But I dont think that any of us has helped the situation. Zaphods JCAI and the arguements that ensued because the the rift I have with soem people and Zaphod not showing any respect for me by quelling ti and nto tryignt o resolve things lead to the start fo the AI 'cold war' as I put it. Where source was onyl released when a major release was made, Ai devs being secret about what they where going to do till it had been implemented and a release was iminent.

The onyl change in that was when zaphod started making regular cvs updates after SJ gave him cvs access. I remember how I felt about the AI scene change here, how I never posted any new theory here, how everything was characterised as either alantai v zaphod or alantai's a crackpot who knows nothing, just ask zaphod instead.

So if cain said sorry in an email tomrorow, I'd be happy to say sorry back and continue discussing things with everyone with him included should he want to. But I've already said I'm sorry, and explained what i was doing and cain ignored it outright.

As for JCAI not doing anything. I cast ym midn back to see that JCAI 0.11 was the version nubmer at the time, and that you where rewritting. No version of JCAI for the current spring version was available. Then I heard from masse that SJ was rumoured to be releasing a new spring version that day so i hurried and tried to get it running fine with no bugs, then SJ released on the day after i was going to release, so yes I did say those thigns because at the time they where true, but only for a short period after i said them did they remain true.

I can see why you feel hurt about things, but I don't think it's fair to blame part of that on me. So others have reacted on you and your AI development in JCAI threads, I don't see why I should stop those people, it's their opinion and (possibly) flame. Have you ever seen me flaming or talking down ntai?
Apparently you feel I am responsible for other peoples posts.

If I am in a situation where someone else releases an AI and I'm not ready and have yet to do a decent AI post, and people start slandering me and you do nothing about ti and in cses even support them

You have filled half of the AI forum with your posts before I even came along, so "have yet to do a decent AI post"???

and you showed me that you didnt respect me whatsoever.

Where have I shown all this disrespect for you?
Yes I have ignored you sometimes, for example in the jcai 0.11, you started posting about lua and exception handling that were entirely unrelated to my AI...
Also I have indicated that I didn't agree with your TAI ideas, that they were to complex to use. I don't see how this is wrong, I wasn't attacking the person.

Alright, I think we need to just let the past go.

AF, you've proved that you're not just a big-talking n00b, with no real idea the effort it takes to build an AI, because you've built one. I can understand you feeling defensive, when you start out under a constant barrage of attacks. But most of that has subsided now. Let's let the past lie.

Zaphod, you'll make life so much easier for yourself if you just agree with him, and tell him it's over now.

Good point triaxx,
from my point of view it never started anyway... so let's call an end to this. I'm not an arrogant and jealous person, and you have indeed proven to be capable of making an AI.

And I'm not an arrogant jealous person either.

I'm sorry for the things I've said zaphod. Early on when people slandered in ym threads I told them to shutup or leave, and since nearly all AI threads where started by me at the time that was fine. It was me showing that i valued my ideas, and that i respected other peoples right to view them without obscenities posted inbetween. If someone was flamed I'd defend them, the msot notable fo that is aGorm, who I defended, admittedly only posting int he thread because I thought it was unfair the way they treated him over regrowing trees. And because I joined in the flame got huge and its still referred to today. When i saw trollish behaviour in othe rpeople I did soemthing.

But that lead to people not liking me. I said hadnt done a decent AI post meanign I hadnt released a decent AI at the time. The lack of respect was when you let people use your thread to slander. You let them hijack your thread willingly and didnt complain, and you did nothing to stop them, posting comments which could have been interpreted by some as you joining in even if it wasnt the case. That was what i had the problem with.

And exception handling was relevant. NTAI 0.27 is uncrashable, only the engine crashes, but that is because I have used exception handling around calls the AI makes. And I mentioned lua because I was offering to rid you of the parser for your config file and give people a familiar sight and syntax of a language interpreter, one that could be extended by you should you wish to. Of course lately you've had your own scripting engine, and expressed similair thoughts.

If you had asked the whole community would have been JCAI centred, and I'd be submitting code to you instead of the paranoia driven NTAI project.

Other than that I've said everything.

So now I can say I'm delighted by the changes I've sene somewhat. People are giving feedback on my ideas as it used to be, and suggesting thigns, and I'm hapy, because thats what I missed most of all of how thigns where before JCAI and darkstars existed, before people made me think this forum was a nightmare that stifled any feedback I wanted.