Introversion Software is joining forces with the event organisers of CIG 2009, to host the first ever DEFCON AI competition aimed at creating the world’s deadliest bot. The contest, scheduled for this September, is a part of an ongoing yearly event that attempts to create bots from videogames that are realistic enough into fooling an expert panel of judges that they are actually human players.

In what has been described as the “Turing Test for Bots”, the competition has chosen DEFCON this year as the game for which bots will be created. This competition follows on from work that the best brains of Imperial College, London, have developed with a DEFCON API (Application Programmers Interface), which enables anyone to create their own DEFCON bot, in true Wargames fashion.

A group of talented programmers will pitch their DEFCON bot against enemy bots in a series of one-on-one thermonuclear chess games. The winner is the programmer whose bot successfully annihilates its opponents and racks up the highest death count. IEEE is offering a $500 prize to the deadliest DEFCON AI bot competition winner.

DEFCON is an online, competitive, multiplayer strategy game simulating global thermonuclear war. The game, inspired by the 1983 cult-classic film, WarGames, superbly evokes the tension, paranoia and suspicion surrounding the Cold War era. DEFCON is available to buy online via Steam and Introversion’s online store.

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