Notes from the First Artificial Intelligence Conference

The first Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE) conference took place in LA last week but not much was heard of the event. A few of the videogame industry's veterans were on-hand discussing ideas, such as Will Wright, Doug Church, and Chris Crawford. Lucky for us, a couple of attendees took some labor-intensive notes and shared them with the Internet. Thanks Slashdot.

[From Will Wright...] observation #3: flow of information has huge impact on how player perceives intelligence average person underestimates what it takes (Will shows video of a "helpless robot" Stupid Fun Club experiment - a fallen broken robot begging for help in an alley in Oakland during the middle of the day) all single women got spooked; single men stripped the robot for parts; mixed gender couples were the only people who helped

These notes are huge; if AI is your game, this should be a fascinating read. It also allows us to understand what the developers think are the shortcomings of videogame AI and what they are planning to do to fix it. Oh, and look! Bing Gordon makes an appearance! AIIDE was Bing'd!