On Game AI In The Uncanny Valley

An anonymous reader writes "Normally, the Uncanny Valley theory is used to critique graphical realism in games, but it also applies to AI. Therefore, designer David Hayward examines AI's Uncanny Valley over at Gamasutra, citing games from Valve's Half-Life 2 to the interactive drama Façade." From the article: 'There's a small minority of people who are consistently strange in particular ways... I don't mean to pick on them as a group; nearly all of us dip into such behavior sometimes, perhaps when we're upset, out of sorts, or drunk. Relative and variable as our social skills are, AI is nowhere near such a sophisticated level of interactive ability. It is, however, robotic. Monstrous and sometimes unintentionally comedic; the intersection of broken AI and spooky people is coming.'"

Comments

Interesting article

[nEoN nOoDlE]

I suspect that consultation with and evaluation by psychology departments may become relevant to game AI in the coming years, given that they're the most comprehensive resource in existence on human behavior

I disagree with this. I think in the future, game programmers won't have to go as far as the psychology departments of their nearest schools. They'll just have to walk over to the nearest cubicle and talk to the animators working on the game. As game models have become more and more complex, companies are using more and more motion capture to capture action sequences, but animators (especially good ones) are trained to make a non-living 3d model imitate human behavior. There's over 50 years of research done for animation by animators on how to bring life to drawings and 3d models in motion - which is something that can be directly transferred over into programming terms as opposed to a research paper on a psychological disorder. An animator can tell you when to make a character blink in order for it to appear more realistic; a psychologist, not so much.

btw, IAAA (I am an animator) so I'm slightly biased :)

Re:Interesting article

[dj_tla]

I'm really surprised that your comment was moderated so highly... It may be interesting, but it is incredibly off-topic. Let's not confuse the issue here: the article is about Game AI. Do animators play a big part in creating realistic games? I would argue no. It's easy to get immersed in a well written book, and yet a crappy wooden romantic comedy doesn't pull me in at all. But aren't actors people, providing the most human-like interaction you could hope to achieve through animation? A poorly written script, where characters get in wacky situations and manage to crack a joke at least once a minute just isn't engaging to me because people don't act that way. Game AI could give two shits how nice its graphical representations look, the point (at least for the AI that is discussed in the article) is to make characters behave in a realistic fashion. If I shoot my gloriously animated team-mate in the crotch in "Excellent New FPS Game 3," I want them to turn on me! If they stand there and take it, then I lose that sense of immersion, and any tension I've built up from the realistic ambiance is lost.

So, in response to the quote (I suspect that consultation with and evaluation by psychology departments may become relevant to game AI in the coming years, given that they're the most comprehensive resource in existence on human behavior), yes, psychology will play a large role as we are able to dedicate more computing resources to AI. This isn't conjecture; I and many other researchers are already consulting with psychologists in designing games.