Presented By O’Reilly and Intel AI
Put AI to work
Sep 4-5, 2018: Training
Sep 5-7, 2018: Tutorials & Conference
San Francisco, CA

Learning from video games

Paris Buttfield-Addison (Secret Lab), Tim Nugent (Lonely Coffee), Mars Geldard (University of Tasmania)
1:45pm-2:25pm Friday, September 7, 2018
AI Business Summit, AI in the Enterprise, Impact of AI on Business and Society
 Location: Continental 5
Secondary topics:  Interfaces and UX
Average rating: ****.
(4.33, 3 ratings)

Who is this presentation for?

  • Everyone will find value in this session.

What you'll learn

  • Learn the problems that have already been solved in gaming development and how you can learn from game use of AI for your non-game applications

Description

Video games have been using sophisticated AI techniques for decades. Long before many other fields looked to solve their problems using intelligent agents, planning algorithms, and complex computer opponents, video games used AI to drive everything from area design to navigation to enemies to conversation and planning.

Paris Buttfield-Addison, Mars Geldard, and Tim Nugent offer an overview of the history of AI in video games and explain how the needs that drove AI advancement in the game development world map to almost-identical problems in the real world. The ideas that have been used in video games for years are only just making their way into other fields, and the knowledge and learning experiences of video game development can help the progress of applying AI to the software world at large.

Topics include:

  • How computer-assisted self-driving cars are solving similar problems to AI characters and vehicles navigating a level in a video game
  • How video games have evolved and created new in-game creatures and characters on the fly, based on player input and activities, and how this process is similar to AI-created Rembrandt imitations and deep dreaming
  • How intelligent conversational interfaces have been used in video games for years to create engaging emergent narrative properties for the player
Photo of Paris Buttfield-Addison

Paris Buttfield-Addison

Secret Lab

Paris Buttfield-Addison is a cofounder of Secret Lab, a game development studio based in beautiful Hobart, Australia. Secret Lab builds games and game development tools, including the multi-award-winning ABC Play School iPad games, the BAFTA- and IGF-winning Night in the Woods, the Qantas airlines Joey Playbox games, and the Yarn Spinner narrative game framework. Previously, Paris was a mobile product manager for Meebo (acquired by Google). Paris particularly enjoys game design, statistics, blockchain, machine learning, and human-centered technology. He researches and writes technical books on mobile and game development (more than 20 so far) for O’Reilly; he recently finished writing Practical AI with Swift and is currently working on Head First Swift. He holds a degree in medieval history and a PhD in computing. Paris loves to bring machine learning into the world of practical and useful. You can find him on Twitter as @parisba.

Photo of Tim Nugent

Tim Nugent

Lonely Coffee

Tim Nugent pretends to be a mobile app developer, game designer, tools builder, researcher, and tech author. When he isn’t busy avoiding being found out as a fraud, Tim spends most of his time designing and creating little apps and games he won’t let anyone see. He also spent a disproportionately long time writing his tiny little bio, most of which was taken up trying to stick a witty sci-fi reference in…before he simply gave up. He’s writing Practical Artificial Intelligence with Swift for O’Reilly and building a game for a power transmission company about a naughty quoll. (A quoll is an Australian animal.)

Photo of Mars Geldard

Mars Geldard

University of Tasmania

Marina Rose Geldard (Mars) is a technologist from Down Under in Tasmania. Entering the world of technology relatively late as a mature-age student, she has found her place in the world: an industry where she can apply her lifelong love of mathematics and optimization. She compulsively volunteers at industry events, dabbles in research, and serves on the executive committee for her state’s branch of the Australian Computer Society (ACS) as well as the AUC. She’s writing Practical Artificial Intelligence with Swift for O’Reilly and working on machine learning projects to improve public safety through public CCTV cameras in her hometown of Hobart.