LLM-Based Players

[Pocc]

I've gotten good at building with AI with the help of Claude Opus, and there are plenty of free models. Do admins care if I create AI players that are always available to play against? Do these LLM-based players already exist? For models like Opus, I could offer them if people were willing to pay for the tokens (have done no testing as to what that would cost).

[cigma]

I have read in the forums that BGA doesn't want to have AI on the platform, but you might ask them yourself via https://boardgamearena.com/support -> others -> business enquiry. These forums are for communication with the community and probably won't answer your question.

[lefalaf]

Glad to hear that BGA doesn't want to have AI on the platform. I hate how LLM AI slop seems to be infecting nearly everything.

I'm only one opinion, but I have zero desire to play with anyone but real humans.

[Andrei3009]

I think it's good to have players constantly available, but I doubt that regular LLMs can handle it. It took months, if not years, to develop good neural networks for Azul and 7 wonders duel, and bots written quickly, even with the help of the cloud (I'll say that I don't know anything about it), are unlikely to be able to produce an adequate result.

[GTSchemer]

Glad to hear that BGA doesn't want to have AI on the platform. I hate how LLM AI slop seems to be infecting nearly everything.

I'm only one opinion, but I have zero desire to play with anyone but real humans.

I may be in the minority but I agree. I would be incredibly disappointed if I tried to play a game and ended up with a bot.

[Pocc]

These bots would be ones you could invite to a game, and wouldn't join tournaments. Regardless, the sentiment here is very negative, which is as important as any business policy.

I think I would also be disappointed if a bot joined a game I created, but I'd be curious to play against them to see how good they are.

[FrankJones]

These bots would be ones you could invite to a game, and wouldn't join tournaments. Regardless, the sentiment here is very negative, which is as important as any business policy.

I think I would also be disappointed if a bot joined a game I created, but I'd be curious to play against them to see how good they are.

We already have some evidence here. The bots for Wingspan, Scythe, Terraforming Mars, and Twilight Struggle are abysmally bad. There are two bots I am aware of that play very well: Patchwork and Race for the Galaxy.

One of those is an abstract strategy game with open information (patchwork), and we know bots can play those games at a very high level.
The other (RFTG) is a thematic strategy game, but a much shorter game than those others, which I assume is partly why someone was able to create such a good bot.

Those terrible bots are very old. Perhaps newer technology can make better bots for those games. I too would be curious, but I don't think I want them on BGA. (Although, having a competent bot could help alleviate the issue of 3-player games being ruined when one player quits mid-game.)

[BarnardsStar]

(Although, having a competent bot could help alleviate the issue of 3-player games being ruined when one player quits mid-game.)

That would be the only use I’d approve of. I don’t see it as particularly necessary, but I wouldn’t mind if zombies were halfway-competent.

[Alphat74]

Glad to hear that BGA doesn't want to have AI on the platform. I hate how LLM AI slop seems to be infecting nearly everything.

I'm only one opinion, but I have zero desire to play with anyone but real humans.

I may be in the minority but I agree. I would be incredibly disappointed if I tried to play a game and ended up with a bot.

Bot could just be a way to play a boardgame you want without the need to wait for someone to play with you. It could also be usefull in case like if you want to try some strategies or any reasons. But I agree that I wouldn't want to play with bots without my consent

[PurplePrimula]

I frankly do not want to touch AI with a barge pole if I can possibly help it. These days I'm starting to take pride in insisting on actually using my own brain. It's not the smartest, fastest brain around but it's mine and it's sure not going to get any smarter if I let it atrophy.

I sincerely hope BGA will never allow AI bots on the site, or at the very least they will be very much opt out. If not, BGA will become irrelevant to me.