[shummie]

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The only thing that might keep these things from spreading like wildfire is the possibility that they'd be more profitable to their creator if he/she were to use them himself rather than sell them. They could conceivably make more money using them on their own than they could make selling them.

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This makes a bit of sense. The guys who are on the cutting edge of Poker AI right now are keeping a lot to themselves and making money by working on Danniel N. XBox Poker or creating Texas Hold'em slot machines. Computer Scientists though, for the most part, like to share. Think Open Source movement. AI specialists especially like to share. The problems involved with making a good poker playing AI are applicable to a wide range of AI studies. The findings of the people working on AI is going to leak into the academic community. The second generation of people who run into these papers and algorithms on poker are going to be able to make bots from them. And by this time, not everyone who is smart enough to do this will be from MIT or be profit-motivated enough to keep there work out of wide spread use.

So this is a stumbling block, but not a huge one.

- Jason