It's a loaded word in the context of the headline, and the manner in which it was used in the story body, especially when combined with "stress" to create an image of a sort of edgy killing machine.
Actually, it's an interesting word. Dictionary definitions of aggression frequently revolve around emotions - it's a very human word, probably not suitable for AI.
The game included the ability to shoot the other player with no consequence - it sounds aggressive because "laser beam" but if you called it "tagging" then it would more clearly just be an in-rules option.
You're technically correct, but the football analogy switches context so that the meaning of aggressive is no longer bad.
I think the point bencollier49 is trying to make is that we simply gave software a specific set of rules to train it. It doesn't know how we perceive the actions it is performing.
The game could be described as two people eating poisonous apples in order to prevent the other person from dying. In that case, the currently greedy one would be the hero.
To the AI, there is nothing aggressive about the "laser gun"; as far as it was aware, the "laser gun" could be any tool. It was just doing what it had determined may help it achieve a better score.
The "laser gun" knocks the other player out of the race.
It's not the name that makes me consider it aggressive, rather the fact that it works by harming the other player.
It's probably true the AI doesn't distinguish "aggressive" tools from other tools. Isn't that one of lessons here? If an AI isn't taught not to be aggressive, it will choose to harm other participants when that's the most effective strategy.
In real life, the game rules are whatever is physically possible, taking into account the risk of getting caught and the corresponding fine.
It is all good fun and laser tag until the AI manages the interests of your bank, your insurer, the stock market, everyone, and you desperately need a liberal government to enforce serious penalties for increasingly complex loopholes that the AI finds in a few seconds.
If the laser gun is not part of the race, it's cheating (at best). I don't understand this nitpicking. Of course a gun is an aggressive tool. "Aggressive" and "competitive" are not mutually exclusive.
It all depends on how the gun is modeled. If, which seems likely, it is as simple as push-button-receive-bacon, then there are no consequences to pushing the button.
It's difficult to characterize that as aggression, especially if the system has no built in notion of harm or other-like-me.
That is what is actually scarier: Violence as paperwork.
Two racers are competing to see who runs faster, but if one pulls out a laser gun and shoots the other, that's aggressive.