Artificial Intelligence in Entertainment

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Artificial Intelligence in Entertainment

• 159.302 (Artificial Intelligence)
• Guest Lecture (1)

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Background

• PhD Candidate here, started 2002, finishing
  write-up at the moment
• Topic is development of synthetic characters in
  live stage performances
• General interest in use of AI in entertainment
  theatre, film, music, art, and, of course, games

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Examples (1)

• GenJam
• See http//www.it.rit.edu/jab/GenJam.html
• The software makes up the music as it goes along
  (it isnt scripted, or prerecorded).

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Examples (2)

• Lord of the Rings (MASSIVE)
• http//www.lordoftherings.net/effects/prologue.swf
  
• http//www.lordoftherings.net/effects/simulator.ht
  ml

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Examples (3)

• Synthetic actors
• M.I.T. Media Lab (SingSong, IT/I)
• My work (The Porcelain Salamander, Mort)

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Examples (4)

• Art
• For example, robotically controlled paintbrushes,
  painting/animation that uses genetic programming
  techniques.
• Games, e.g. The Sims (http//thesims2.ea.com)

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Synthetic Characters (1)

• Agents, essentially, whose task is to simulate a
  personality or character.
• Used in many areas film, interfaces (e.g. the
  popular Office paperclip), theatre, tutoring
  systems,

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Synthetic Characters (2)

• A lot of mundane tasks (vision, speech, natural
  language etc).
• An expert task controlling (planning) the
  behaviour (the mundane tasks) so that the
  impression of a personality is given.

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Example Mundane Speech

• A synthetic actor (a synthetic character in a
  performance) has four speech tasks
• Synthesis of dialogue/other sounds
• Adapting the synthesized dialogue to include
  emotion/cognitive state
• Recognition of dialogue/other sounds
• Analysis of the recognized dialogue (e.g. for
  emotion/cognitive state)

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Classes of Synthetic Characters

• Synthetic characters can be
• Scripted (follow certain prescribed behaviour)
• Reactive (react to events that occur in the
  real/virtual world)
• Adaptive (change own internal state based on
  events that occur)
• Or a mixture of these.

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Review Questions

• Give an example of the use of artificial
  intelligence in entertainment, and name an AI
  technique used in that example.
• What are three uses for synthetic characters?
• What distinguishes an adaptive synthetic
  character from a scripted or reactive one?