The U.S. Navy Is Teaching Sea Lions To Play Video Games —And They Love It
So far, three California sea lions have been trained to use the system, controlling the cursor with their snout through a simple virtual maze."When he crosses the finish line, we cheer and his trainer rewards him with herring," Maison Piedfort, from the Naval Information Warfare Center Pacific, said in a statement describing the work.
"The joy in the eye contact between him and his trainer as they celebrate a job well done—Spike [the sea lion] with his side-to-side dance and victory yelps—is palpable and infectious. He turns back to the screen and positions himself to win the next game." Spike the sea lion stays extremely focused while playing the game and does a victory dance when he succeeds.The sea lions have spent three years training to learn to play the games, and have shown improvements in weight maintenance and performance in voluntary health checks during this time, although we do not yet whether this is directly linked to the gaming.
Sea lions are not the only animals on the Marine Mammal Program, and the squad's dolphins have not been left out. However, designing a gaming system for animals that cannot leave the water involves a few extra hurdles."Gaming dolphins need a large screen visible from the water, and sunlight interferes with visibility of a projector set up on the pier, which means gaming sessions happen after sunset," Piedfort said.
Moving forward, the team hopes to develop multiplayer games, possibly even games where different species can play against each other."We built a game where we can compete against Spike—he can chase us around and we can move away," Winship said."He hasn't seen it yet. He's going to be really excited."
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