Artificial and Computational Intelligence in Games

Motivation

This seminar will bring together researchers and industry representatives who work at the forefront of artificial intelligence (AI) and computational intelligence (CI) in games. The seminar will include a wide range of researchers and developers, including specialists in abstract and mathematical games, board game development, AI for commercial video games and serious games.

The video game industry is the largest of the entertainment industries and growing rapidly. While modern games offer stunning graphics, the quality of the AI has for a long time been a weak point of many games. There is now a great deal of interest both from the games industry and from academic AI researchers in improving game AI, and in novel applications of AI methods such as procedural content generation, player experience optimization, and automated testing. Nonetheless, the research field remains somewhat fragmented, and there is often no clear picture of which (if any) AI or CI methods are best suited to solving particular problems. Therefore we seek to assemble experts from several research areas, in order to encourage cross-fertilization of ideas with a bearing on games. In particular, we expect to be able to build bridges between academic and industrial practitioners and researchers by inviting leaders from each community.

The main expected outcome of the seminar is a better understanding of the challenges inherent in developing next generation video game AI, and where AI and CI research can have an impact. This could have a significant economic impact by improving the quality of commercial games (both in the entertainment and serious game sectors). Equally importantly, games provide some of the most demanding test-beds for new AI algorithms. Hence, we also expect the seminar to have a significant impact on computer science research.