GDC AI Summit: Less A, More I – Using Psychology in Game AI

GDC AI Summit: Embracing the Dark Art of Mathematical Modeling in AI

(Photo by Neil Kirby)

The event is in conjunction with Rhizome.org as part of their New Silent series presenting “contemporary art engaged with new technology.“ Rhizome itself is ”dedicated to the creation, presentation, preservation, and critique of emerging artistic practices that engage technology.”

Specifically, the Kill Screen Dialogs event is organized with the help of Jamin Warren, co-founder and president of Kill Screen Media (who wrote an interview/article on me in their pilot “Issue 0″). I want to thank Jamin for inviting me to be part of this event. I am truly honored.

From the event page:

When are games more than games? When they are communicating with others?

Although videogames are bigger than ever, they are often perceived as cultural silos and not in conversation with other art forms or cultures. In conjunction with videogame arts and culture company Kill Screen, Rhizome invites you to an evening of conversations between game designers and new media artists. Divided into three mini-conversations, the talks will explore three areas: artificial intelligence, with Dave Mark and Mary Flanagan; the feeling of digital objects, with Tabor Robak and Katherine Isbister; and games as space, with Casey Reas and Andy Nealen.

I am excited to be paired up with Mary Flanagan for this as we discuss the role of AI in art and games (and “art games”, I suppose). Mary has done some interesting, thought-provoking work as an artist and game developer, and as a writer.

I urge those of you in the New York area to join us. Tickets are only $8 ($6 for New Museum members). I am sure it will be interesting, educational, and inspiring!

Steve Rabin and I set about putting together this year’s program back in September—a full 6 months before GDC. While we brought some ideas of our own, most of the content suggestions came from the collective thoughts of members of the AI Game Programmers Guild. After hundreds of fast-and-furious posts, we have almost completely crystallized what it is that will be in this year’s Summit.

Of the 12 sessions that we have alloted time for, we have submitted 8… 6 of which are already listed on the site. In this, our 3rd year, we are still coming up with new, relevant, and exciting material to present. We believe that it will once again be a great venue for not only broadly educational, but cutting-edge AI material.

Hope to see you there!

Thanks to long-time game AI developer, colleague, tech editor, and good friend, Kevin Dill, for inviting me to speak. (Actually it was more along the lines of “you’re coming to Boston? You’re speaking at Lockheed.”)

On a related note, I’m looking forward to meeting with a number of companies in the Boston area, and especially being able to spend some time with a portion of the veritable cornucopia of excellent AI devs in the area.

Here is the tentative description of his session proposal as accepted by the GDC Online Advisory Board:

Session Description
Many areas of game design and programming benefit from very simple premises found in the 50-year old discipline of game theory. When games go awry, it is often due to not applying one or more of these ideas. Online competitive games in particular are prone to tipping precariously out of balance. By comparing staple online games such as World of Warcraft, Team Fortress 2, and Starcraft to classic game theory examples such as Rock-Paper-Scissors and Prisoner’s Dilemma, this lecture offers practical tips on how game theory methodologies can be used to craft well-balanced games—and potentially avert disaster!

Session Takeaway
The attendee will see some of the classic example problems of game theory in action, how their concepts can be applied to the design of online competitive games, and how those applications can create richer gameplay.

This will be my second appearance at GDC Online (formerly GDC Austin) and my 4th overall participation at GDC events. My 2009 GDC Austin lecture, ”Cover Me! Promoting MMO Player Interaction through Advanced AI” garnered a attendee rating of 4.9 (out of 5) compared to the conference average of 4.29. This included a 4.9 score on the item, “Would you recommend this session to a colleague?”

My thanks to the GDC Online advisory board and the wonderful conference staff, Jen Steele and Kara Foley, for the opportunity once again. A special nod to board member Raph Koster whose excellent “Games Are Math” session from last year gave me a reminder of  how relevant this topic is.

Hope to see you all there!

(To download lecture slides from any of my past conference lectures, visit our “media” page.)

2009 GDC AI Summit
Breaking the Cookie-Cutter: Modeling Individual Personality, Mood, and Emotion in Characters

2009 GDC Austin
Cover Me!: Promoting MMO Player Interaction through Advanced AI

2009 GameX Industry Summit
The Art of Game AI: Sculpting Behavior with Data, Formulas, and Finesse

2010 GDC AI Summit
Improving AI Decision Modeling Through Utility Theory
AI Devs Rant!

Some of these were joint lectures but only contain my content. The exceptions are the GameX one and the Utility Theory lecture. Both of those were joint with Kevin Dill. I have permission to use his content (as he does with mine).

I will continue to update that page as I do other lectures in the future.

Once again, Dave is heading to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and once again he will be helping run the AI Summit as a presentation of the AI Game Programmers Guild.

In addition to his role as Summit Advisor, he will be delivering a joint lecture with Kevin Dill entitled Improving AI Decision Modeling Through Utility Theory and taking part in a panel, Deciding on an AI Architecture: Which Tool for the Job?

If you are at GDC this week, you should be able to find Dave at the AI Summit or at any of the various AI roundtables or lectures. See you there!

“GameX Industry Summit is designed by industry professionals for industry professionals. It represents a deep and concerted production between the GameX production team and five IGDA chapters in New York, New Jersey, Boston, Baltimore and Philadelphia, bringing together the best and the brightest of the video game industry, right in the middle of the rapidly expanding East Coast game industry.”

Our lecture will be as follows:

The Art of Game AI: Sculpting Behavior with Data, Formulas, and Finesse

Whether designer, producer, or programmer, the term “game AI” summons visions of cold, sterile code. Programmers that deal in AI may be more specific in their definition by listing technical tools such as state machines, search or pathfinding algorithms, behavior trees, or planning architectures. While there is value in selecting the proverbial “right tool for the job,” in very few cases will simply using a chosen tool yield the behaviors that make our characters come alive. The life-magic that we breathe into our agents must come from the subtlety of the numbers, formulas, and relationships between data that we plug into those tools.

This lecture will explore the challenges that are involved in constructing realistic behaviors, the mindset that one must adopt to accurately model these behaviors, and the techniques that can be used to construct them. We will show that many of the decision techniques can often be applied to a project regardless of the underlying logical infrastructure. The attendee will leave with a broad summary of how to approach the artistry of constructing artificial behaviors – and will likely have adopted the annoying habit of assigning values and formulas to everything they see around them.

I’m very much looking forward to sharing the stage with my friend and colleague – and the tech editor of my book, Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI (God help him!) It should be a fun and informative hour of material.