Why Did 1990s Shooter Games Matter for AI?

David Heinemeier Hansson says 1990s shooter games mattered for AI because, without them, there would have been no GPUs and no AI in the shape it has now. AI did not arrive from the sky. It has been around for as long as computer science has been around. A blind turn toward other symbolic representations probably set the work back about 15 years, and the gaming revolution was also required.

In the 50s, the smartest people at the time thought the problem was going to be cracked in about a decade. It took longer, in part because other symbolic representations were expected to carry the day and they did not. The field had to go through 3D games. Without Quake, Duke Nukem, and Unreal Tournament, there would have been no GPUs, and without the GPUs there would be no AI in the shape it has now. Everything done up until AI took that shape was required to get there. Time spent playing video games in the 90s was part of what got the field there.

Training or playing video games was a small contribution to the AI revolution and to the progress of human civilization.