#MarioLives - Scientists Have Given Mario Artificial Intelligence So He Can Think And Feel
Ever wondered what it's like to be Mario? Trapped in the Mushroom Kingdom killing Goombas, ceaselessly collecting coins, and constantly having to rescue a princess when you probably just want to put your feet up and play Call of Duty.
A group of scientists at the University of Tubingen, Germany have created an AI Mario game for their project Mario Lives!—where Mario can react to voice commands, but is also able to experience rudimentary emotions and respond to them too.
He's also become a teeny bit self-aware, possibly knowing that he's trapped inside a world of pixels, doomed to repeat the same levels again and again and again until he's maybe saved by a glitch (see below). "As most of you know, this is Mario," the video begins. "But what you do not know is that this Mario has become aware of himself and his environment—at least to a certain extent."
The researchers then toy with Mario's emotions, asking him how he feels. "I feel good!" he replies cheerily. But then, in no way playing God, they ask him not to be so happy. "How do you feel now?" says a researcher, "Not so good" says our recently depressed plumber.
Different feelings can spur different reactions, for instance he'll go looking for coins when he feels hungry or start autonomously exploring the environment when he feels curious. All said and done it's a cool project, but for some reason it makes me feel like going all Charlton Heston at the end of Planet of the Apes. "YOU MANIACS! God damn you! GOD DAMN YOU ALL TO HELL!
In other Mario-related news, a guy has managed to reprogram the SNES classic Super Mario World just by playing it using a glitch called a "credits warp." The glitch is supposedly quite well known but Seth Bling is the first person to ever actually perform it.
Here's how he explains it, "The idea is to set up the console's memory in just the right way, then perform a glitch which will cause the credits to play without defeating Bowser."
Check it out in the video, below.