Researchers at Oxford University are setting Google's artificial intelligence DeepMind loose on analyzing Hearthstone

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Image credit: University of Oxford, Ling, Grefenstatte, Hermann, Kocisky, Senior, Wang, Blunsom.

According to Kotaku , the AI analyzes card data such as resource cost and damage, and turns it into code that a machine can read.Here's the abstract from the paper titled 'Latent Predictor Networks for Code Generation': "Many language generation tasks require the production of text conditioned on both structured and unstructured inputs. We present a novel neural network architecture which generates an output sequence conditioned on an arbitrary number of input functions. Crucially, our approach allows both the choice of conditioning context and the granularity of generation, for example characters or tokens, to be marginalised, thus permitting scalable and effective training."Using this framework, we address the problem of generating programming code from a mixed natural language and structured specification. We create two new data sets for this paradigm derived from the collectible trading card games Magic the Gathering and Hearthstone. On these, and a third preexisting corpus, we demonstrate that marginalising multiple predictors allows our model to outperform strong benchmarks."Basically, they're making code combined from the structured part of cards, e.g. the mana cost, and the natural language part that may change the way the card works. Where DeepMind comes in is how it can learn by analyzing more and more cards how to produce more accurate code. Luckily, there are well over 10,000 Magic: The Gathering cards DeepMind can peruse to get better.Right now for example, it understands how the Hearthstone card Madder Bomber works because it had previously seen Mad Bomber, which works in a similar way. However, for a card like Preparation, it is still struggling to find the actual meaning. The image below shows the cards with associated code, with correct segments in green, and incorrect segments in red.Thankfully for professional Hearthstone players, DeepMind isn't actually playing the game yet, so they're free from the same fate as some of the best Go players in the world

Matt Porter is a freelance writer based in London. Make sure to visit what he thinks is the best website in the world , but is actually just his Twitter page