In a period in which the debate on the infinite applications of artificial intelligence (AI) is taking center stage, someone has seen fit to use it for a noble purpose: to create infinite levels of Super Mariocreate MarioGPT. The most famous Italian plumber in the world thus becomes more eternal than it already was.
The project was born at the IT University of Copenhagen which, guess what, is located right in the Danish capital. Of course, in 2022 the charm of the iconic Super Mario Bros. on NES it could appear faded in the eyes of the new generations, who grew up with the hyper-realistic graphics of the new-gen consoles. But a great game is only great if you enjoy playing it: and Super Mario Bros. is great fun. But how exactly is MarioGPT? And how does it work? Let’s try to figure it out together
How MarioGPT uses AI to generate Super Mario levels
What the researchers at the IT University of Copenhagen had in mind was to create an infinite Super Mario, which would allow players to play forever, like the twins from The Shining. To do this, they calibrated the AI to be able to generate infinite Super Mario levels every dayall brand new and absolutely different from each other.
Although the name may be misleading, as it recalls the very popular ChatGPT, MarioGPT is based on a totally different, non-conversational AI model called GPT-2. It’s about an AI capable of recognizing and reproducing patterns in a procedural way.
However, it would be a mistake to believe that the AI just places pipes and bricks at random on a predetermined 2D path. MarioGPT is in fact much more complex than that: the artificial intelligence is able to calculate the level of difficulty of the path generated, so as not to offer users a simple passive crossing. Depending on the needs, then, it is possible to ask MarioGPT to create a level according to our needs: do we want there to be enemies? Many pipes or more bricks?
At the moment the project is only in its infancy, so the dataset available to AI is still limited. MarioGPT, for example, is only able to create models of the first levels, those on the surface. However the developers promise that it will soon be able to generate underground and underwater levels, just like in the Super Mario games of the 80s.
At the moment MarioGPT is under construction, the project is not yet officially online.