Whenever Bridge Base Online users are playing against the bots, they rely on the skills of a bot known as GIB. Ginsberg’s Intelligent Bridge-player was created to play bridge on a competitive level against human players, and still ranks as one of the most reliable bots ever built for it.
But what other artificial intelligence systems are out there created for the purpose of playing games?
IBM’s Deep Blue is the first one that comes to mind for a lot of people, but there are many others created for poker, reversi, and even Monopoly.
Here’s a list of 5 other game-playing bots:
1. AlphaGo
AlphaGo is officially one of the most powerful AI systems ever designed for the game of Reversi.
Designed by DeepMind, the bot had its first professional match record set in 2015 by beating the world champion at the game. After another world championship match for the bot in 2017, AlphaGo was retired in its current state.
After this, the software evolved to become AlphaZero, the current best computer player in the world.
2. Monopoly voice banking
A modern version of Monopoly called Monopoly Voice Banking includes an artificial intelligence which accepts voice commands from players – all while keeping track of the actions performed in the game.
Popular Mechanics covered the game for an in-depth review in 2019.
In this enhanced version of the classic property board game, the banker is placed in the middle of the board in the form of a top hat. What could be more appropriate for the theme?
Buttons are used by the player to trigger the bot into action, and voice commands will tell it what to calculate from there.
It’s not an actively competing AI opponent in a physical board game yet, but who knows what we might see in the future?
3. Nexus
If you’re a fan of the Yu-Gi-Oh! trading card game, you should get to know Dueling Nexus as one of the best online places to play it.
Deck construction, competitive matches, and bot practice are all available on the site – and it stays completely true to the mechanics of the game.
If you’re playing against a bot, you’re duelling against Nexus AI. Simply, it’s described as “an advanced duelling robot players can use to test their decks.”
Nexus is smarter than just this, though. In a duel, it plays exceptionally well, and can be hard to beat depending on the difficulty setting.
4. Libratus
Libratus was created in 2017 as an elite poker bot, designed to be far better at the popular card game than most championship table players.
Noam Brown and Tuomas Sandholm (from Carnegie-Mellon) get credit for creating this powerful poker bot, capable of beating almost anyone alive or dead at two-player poker.
Forbes covered the AI’s aptitude at the game in 2019 for a feature piece on what it could mean for the future of general AI development.
Clue: Bots are getting smarter.
5. Pluribus
Pluribus was designed by the combined efforts of Facebook and Carnegie-Mellon, with the idea of creating a bot that can beat human players at multiple-player Texas Hold’em poker.
What makes Pluribus a revolution for poker AI is the fact that it can beat several players – and not just two, like Liberatus or earlier versions.
From its official Facebook press release, “Pluribus is the first AI bot capable of beating human experts in six-player no-limit Hold’em, the most widely played poker format in the world.”