{"443231":{"#nid":"443231","#data":{"type":"news","title":"Georgia Tech Uses Artificial Intelligence to Crowdsource Interactive Fiction","body":[{"value":"\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology researchers have developed a new artificially intelligent system that crowdsources plots for interactive stories, which are popular in video games and let players choose different branching story options.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EWith potentially limitless crowdsourced plot points, the system could allow for more creative stories and an easier method for interactive narrative generation. Current AI models for games have a limited number of scenarios, no matter what a player chooses. They depend on a dataset already programmed into a model by experts.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EUsing the Georgia Tech approach, one might imagine a Star Wars game using online fan fiction to let the AI system generate countless paths for a player to take.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u201cOur open interactive narrative system learns genre models from crowdsourced example stories so that the player can perform different actions and still receive a coherent story experience,\u201d says Mark Riedl, lead investigator and associate professor of interactive computing at Georgia Tech.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EA \u003Ca href=\u0022https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=znqw17aOrCs\u0026amp;feature=youtu.be\u0022 target=\u0022_blank\u0022\u003Etest of the AI system\u003C\/a\u003E, called Scheherazade IF (Interactive Fiction) -- a reference to the fabled Arabic queen and storyteller \u2013 showed that it can achieve near human-level authoring.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p1\u0022\u003E\u201cWhen enough data is available and that data sufficiently covers all aspects of the game experience, the system was able to meet or come close to meeting human performance in creating a playable story,\u201d says Riedl.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EThe researchers evaluated the AI system by measuring the number of \u201ccommonsense\u201d errors (e.g. scenes out of sequence) found by players, as well as players\u2019 subjective experiences for things such as enjoyment and coherence of story. \u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EThree test groups played through two interactive stories \u2013 a bank robbery and a date to the movies \u2013 in order to measure performance of three narrative generators: the AI story generator, a human-programmed generator or a random story generator.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EFor the bank robbery story, the AI system performed identically to the human-programmed generator in terms of errors reported by players, with a median of three each. The random generator produced a median of 12.5 errors reported.\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EFor the movie date scenario, the median values of errors reported were three (human), five (AI) and 15 (random). This shows the AI system performing at 83.3 percent of the human-programmed generator.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EAs for the play experience itself, the human and AI generators compared favorably for coherence, player involvement, enjoyment and story recognition.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EThe creators say that they are seeking to inject more creative scenarios into the system. Right now, the AI plays it safe with the crowdsourced content, producing what one might expect in different genres. But opportunities exist to train Scheherazade (just like its namesake implies) to surprise and immerse those in future interactive experiences.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EThe impact of this research can support not only online storytelling for entertainment, but also digital storytelling used in online course education or corporate training.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003EThe research paper \u201cCrowdsourcing Open Interactive Narrative\u201d (co-authored by Matthew Guzdial, Brent Harrison, Boyang Li and Mark Riedl)\u0026nbsp;was presented at the 2015 Foundations of Digital Games Conference in Pacific Grove, Calif.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E\u003Cp class=\u0022p2\u0022\u003E\u003Cem\u003EThis research was supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF) under grant 1350339. Any conclusions expressed are those of the principal investigator and may not necessarily represent the official views of the NSF.\u003C\/em\u003E\u003C\/p\u003E","summary":null,"format":"limited_html"}],"field_subtitle":"","field_summary":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EGeorgia Institute of Technology researchers have developed a new artificially intelligent system that crowdsources plots for interactive stories, which are popular in video games and let players choose different branching story options.\u0026nbsp;\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"field_summary_sentence":[{"value":"Georgia Institute of Technology researchers have developed a new artificially intelligent system that crowdsources plots for interactive stories, which are popular in video games and let players choose different branching story options."}],"uid":"27592","created_gmt":"2015-09-01 11:49:53","changed_gmt":"2016-10-08 03:19:29","author":"Joshua Preston","boilerplate_text":"","field_publication":"","field_article_url":"","dateline":{"date":"2015-09-01T00:00:00-04:00","iso_date":"2015-09-01T00:00:00-04:00","tz":"America\/New_York"},"extras":[],"hg_media":{"443661":{"id":"443661","type":"image","title":"Mark Riedl","body":null,"created":"1449256205","gmt_created":"2015-12-04 19:10:05","changed":"1475895182","gmt_changed":"2016-10-08 02:53:02","alt":"Mark Riedl","file":{"fid":"203133","name":"5-mark_riedl.jpg","image_path":"\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/5-mark_riedl_0.jpg","image_full_path":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/\/sites\/default\/files\/images\/5-mark_riedl_0.jpg","mime":"image\/jpeg","size":7209470,"path_740":"http:\/\/www.tlwarc.hg.gatech.edu\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/740xx_scale\/public\/images\/5-mark_riedl_0.jpg?itok=T0dyacR8"}}},"media_ids":["443661"],"groups":[{"id":"1214","name":"News Room"}],"categories":[],"keywords":[],"core_research_areas":[{"id":"39501","name":"People and Technology"}],"news_room_topics":[{"id":"71901","name":"Society and Culture"}],"event_categories":[],"invited_audience":[],"affiliations":[],"classification":[],"areas_of_expertise":[],"news_and_recent_appearances":[],"phone":[],"contact":[{"value":"\u003Cp\u003EJoshua Preston\u003Cbr \/\u003EGVU Center, College of Computing\u003Cbr \/\u003E678.231.0787\u003C\/p\u003E","format":"limited_html"}],"email":["jpreston@cc.gatech.edu"],"slides":[],"orientation":[],"userdata":""}}}