In the new chapter, 20 bit by ValPat We sat down and talked about something that has always fascinated us: how we think and how machines think. There are also games that not only allow you to have fun, but also put you in the moment where human logic and computational logic meet. A game that teaches you how to make decisions, anticipate errors, and see the world the way a computer does, without complicated manuals or programming classes.
Some are thousands of years old, some were born in Spanish universities, and some are hidden inside the gaming consoles that many children keep at home. They all have something in common. they make you thinkand they do it in such a fun way that you won’t even realize you’re learning.
In this chapter, we will talk about: Four games (two tabletop and two console) train your brain and show you step-by-step how machines reason..
GO: A game that tests artificial intelligence
Imagine an empty board. Smooth wood, black lines, white and black chips. Nothing else.
It’s hard to believe that one of the greatest intellectual challenges in history is hidden in something so simple.
he gowhich originated in China 2,500 years ago, has two rules that are so simple that anyone can learn them in 5 minutes. However, once you enter that world, there is an infinite universe. The possible combinations of the game exceed the number of atoms in the universe. literally.
For decades, no computer could master it. It wasn’t a pushy issue. I had to learn to intuitsomething we always thought was exclusive to humans.
And in 2016 it came AlphaGo. DeepMind’s artificial intelligence has analyzed millions of games, played thousands of matches, and learned to make decisions that are unimaginable to humans. It’s already legendary “Play 37”a move so bizarre that experts around the world thought it was a mistake. It wasn’t. It was algorithmic creativity in its purest form.
Since then, Go has become more than just a game. Go is a laboratory of ideas and a mirror for understanding how machines can learn, surprise, and win.
Moon: When you became the Apollo 11 computer
Next, we will change the board for the lunar module.
1969. Apollo 11 is about to land on the moon. There are only a few seconds left. The alarm begins to sound. Something is wrong.
and montha board game created at the University of Deusto, You Are the Mind of the System. It is the computer that keeps the module stable and decides which tasks are prioritized and what can be sacrificed to avoid disaster.
This is a homage to the work of margaret hamiltonMIT engineer software Saved the mission when radar overwhelmed the system. Because the code was written line by line, we were able to discard secondary processes and focus on what was important. land without crashing.
Moon recreates the types of decisions that solve incidents, follow binary logic, and understand how machines process information.
Video Game Studio: Program without writing a single line
Next, turn on your Nintendo Switch. Don’t play: create.
in video game studioany idea you can think of can be turned into a video game. No knowledge of C++ or Python is required. Just drag blocks, connect actions, and decide what happens.
It’s visual programming, but it’s more than that: it’s a trial-and-error laboratory.
Place the characters. You try jumping. Something is wrong. You are the one to adjust it. You will fail again. you fix it.
And before you know it, you’re learning exactly the same things other developers learn. Think systemically, anticipate errors, and build rules..
Super Mario Maker 2: Design levels and understand the mind
Super Mario Maker 2 starts out as a building game…but turns out to be a mind-reading game.
Design levels, place pipes, combine two platforms, hide traps. But at the end of the day, what you’re doing is imagining how other people would play.
Would it jump faster? Will it fall there? Is it too difficult? Too easy?
The dance between what you create and what other players do is truly at the heart of video game design. predict, adjust, balance.
Playing is also a way of thinking.
These four games are very different from each other, but they share important aspects. That means forcing your brain to activate. To reason. create To predict. We plan to resolve it.
And, almost imperceptibly, it also tells you how the machines you use every day work. AI that analyzes millions of possibilities, software that prioritizes tasks, systems that respond to events, and designers that imagine actions.
Because the point is not to avoid screens or just look at them. The key is Use technology to learn, create, and understand how the world around us works.
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