Next-Gen Content Creation for Next-Gen AI Damián Isla Moonshot Games 2

The Photoshop of AI Debate Structure vs. Style –Hecker, GDC 2008 Photoshop of AI – Hecker, Rabin, Isla, Reynolds, Pfiefer, GDC 2009 Next-Gen Content Creation for Next-Gen AI – Isla, FDG 2009 The Photoshop of AI Debate – Mateas, AIIDE 2009

Style vs. Structure For “hard interactive problems”, there are representations that are both (a) Computationally tractable (b) Expressively parameterizable E.g. bitmaps, the texture-mapped triangle

AI Content Creation Can there exist a style/structure breakdown that makes a Photoshop of AI possible? What’s the best way to author AI content for games? (And who does the authoring?) (And what the hell is “AI Content” anyway?)

“A small studio making downloadable games with triple-A production values and technology.” ?!

The Starting Point The central competency of Game AI is expressive power for the behavior author, not “intelligence” “Intelligence” is only useful insofar as  It enables gameplay  It supports the fiction  It makes the game more fun

The Problem AI is HARD  Technically complex  Highly interconnected  Impossible to test  Culturally awkward

The Problem Designer Engineer Fundamentally not in a position to fully specify all fun- relevant behavior Fundamentally not responsible for fun

2 Solutions 1. Need a new breed of engineering-competent designers or design-sensitive engineers (Michael Mateas) 2. Need better authoring paradigms, a “Photoshop of AI” (Chris Hecker)

The Photoshop of AI Photoshop of AI = WYSIWIG AI Why are we so very, very far from WYSIWIG? What does WYSIWIG even mean?

Wisdom from Douglas Adams AI is a 5-dimensional problem How do you  Visualize  Explore  Specify that entire space?

AI Content Creation How do we currently author AI content for games?

AI Content Creation AI is HARD  Technically complex  Highly interconnected  Impossible to test  Culturally awkward The path of least resistance: “do it in code” The path of least resistance: “do it in code”

AI Content Creation Everything in code Everything in data

Disclaimer Two things I’m not going to talk about  Genre-specific AI  RTS, FPS, racing, etc.  The Periphery  Don’t deal with the 5D problem  Don’t suffer from a lack of expressive control

The State of the Art Imperative when A happens, do B x 10,000

Our old friend, the FSM fightsearch hide idle

Managing Complexity in the Halo 2 AI (GDC 05) melee shoot grenade uncover pursue cover sleep fight search hide idle root

BT Editor Prototype, Alex Champandard, AIGameDev.com

misBeHavinG BT Editor, Michael Dawe, Big Huge Games

The State of the Art Declarative “I’ll describe what can be done, and then you take care of the details.”

The Sims, EA/Maxis

Halo 3: Building a Better Battle (GDC 08)

F.E.A.R., Jeff Orkin, Monolith Productions

SPIROPS A.I.

Where is the PSOAI? One thing we can say: It will be some form of off-line learning. (If it is possible at all)

Where is the PSOAI? Two possibilities:  Behavior Capture  Cooperative / Expert-system / Virtual actor / Reinforcement-learning AI Extravaganza

AC Game Recording Viewer, Artificial Contender, TruSoft

AC Knowledge Viewer, Artificial Contender, TruSoft

The Restaurant Game, Jeff Orkin, MIT Media Lab

Behavior Capture Pros:  Leverage the data-mining revolution  Potentially no custom interface at all? Questions:  Iteration time  Tweakability  Transparency  Are we learning the right things?  Are we learning the deep structure?

The State of the Art Cooperative / Expert-system / Virtual actor / Reinforcement-learning AI Extravaganza!

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Constantin Stanislavski ( ) "If you know your character's thoughts, the proper vocal and bodily expressions will naturally follow." "All action on the stage must have an inner justification, be logical, coherent, and real."

Method Acting Designer Whoa, whoa, whoa, stop. You should have run away screaming right there. AI Really? What, because of the grenade?

Method Acting Designer No, no, because of the kitten. AI Huh. So I’m afraid of kittens? Designer Yes.

Method Acting AI So would you say I’m more afraid of kittens or of water? Designer Well, I hadn’t thought of it, but … yeah, I would say you’re more afraid of kittens. AI Alright. Let’s go again!

Cooperative AI  Medical Expert Systems  Mycin  CALO/IRIS  Clippy

2 Solutions 1. Need a new breed of engineering-competent designers or design-sensitive engineers (Michael Mateas) 2. Need better authoring paradigms, a “Photoshop of AI” (Chris Hecker)

2 Solutions With Reservations:  It will be a form of coding  But we need more powerful representations  The tension between design and engineering is a useful and necessary one.  Behavior specification will (and should) be done by designers* * where “designer” is defined as the person responsible for making the game fun.

Thanks Alex Champandard, AiGameDev.com Petra Champandard-Pail, AiGameDev.com Michael Dawe, Big Huge Games Brett Laming, Rockstar Leeds Steve Mariotti, Nihilistic Software Michael Mateas, UC Santa Cruz Jeff Orkin, MIT Media Lab / Monolith Productions Brian Schwab, SCEA Bungie Studios