BOUNCE idrama@mail.flutterby.com: Non-member submission from [Nicolas Szilas <nicolas@ics.mq.edu.au>]

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>From danlyke@flutterby.com Fri Mar 25 04:59:00 2005
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Date: Fri, 25 Mar 2005 23:55:50 +1100
From: Nicolas Szilas <nicolas@ics.mq.edu.au>
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To: idrama@flutterby.com
Subject: Re: Interactive Drama: Why I've lost interest
References: <16963.13684.691008.187209@flutterby.com> <4243A249.4020507@acm.org>
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Peter Gruenbaum wrote :

> Interesting thoughts. They've inspired me to write down my own 
> thoughts on the subject.
>
> Sometimes when I hear people talking about interactive drama, it 
> reminds me of the discussions I heard in the 1970s about artificial 
> intelligence. (I might be one of the few people on this list who is 
> old enough to remember the 1970s!) People were positive that AI was 
> right around the corner and that in a few years, we would be able to 
> program a computer to make good, intelligent decisions on its own. 
> Well, we all know that isn't what happened. The computer revolution 
> took off when GUIs were introduced. That kept the decision making in 
> the hands of people. The GUIs made it easy for people to have their 
> decisions have quick and powerful consequences.


--> I don't think you can push the analogy that far... We have learned 
from the seventies: most projects on Interactive Drama do not claim that 
their system is creative. This means that, even if those systems claim 
to be intelligent, they are not designed to replace the authoring 
activity, and its main feature, creativity.

>
> With a story, you want the decision making in the hands of the author. 
> I'm very skeptical about the idea that we can program a computer to 
> look at the input from participants in an interactive drama and make a 
> good decision about how the story should go. We need something that 
> makes it easy for an author to look at the input from participants in 
> real time and make decisions and have those decisions be implemented. 
> It's the equivalent of having a GUI to tell the computer what to do. 
> The story remains under the control of the author and the technology 
> allows it to reach out to many people.

--> I undertand that you are skeptical. As a researcher on Interactive 
Drama, I also want that the story remains under control of the author, 
but by "under control", I do not mean that the author is choosing each 
possible step in the story. Rather, I believe that some higher control 
is possible. The challenge is that the system does not become an 
intelligent and not controlable black box, that the author is not happy 
to work with, and which can not produce interesting experience.


Nicolas

www.idtension.com <http://www.idtension.com>

-- 
Dr Nicolas Szilas
Department of Computing
Macquarie University
Sydney NSW 2109 Australia
ph:  +61 2 9850 9113
fax: +61 2 9850 9551



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<br>
Peter Gruenbaum wrote :
<blockquote cite="mid4243A249.4020507@acm.org" type="cite">Interesting
thoughts. They've inspired me to write down my own thoughts on the
subject.
  <br>
  <br>
Sometimes when I hear people talking about interactive drama, it
reminds me of the discussions I heard in the 1970s about artificial
intelligence. (I might be one of the few people on this list who is old
enough to remember the 1970s!) People were positive that AI was right
around the corner and that in a few years, we would be able to program
a computer to make good, intelligent decisions on its own. Well, we all
know that isn't what happened. The computer revolution took off when
GUIs were introduced. That kept the decision making in the hands of
people. The GUIs made it easy for people to have their decisions have
quick and powerful consequences.
  <br>
</blockquote>
<br>
--&gt; I don't think you can push the analogy that far... We have
learned from the seventies: most projects on Interactive Drama do not
claim that their system is creative. This means that, even if those
systems claim to be intelligent, they are not designed to replace the
authoring activity, and its main feature, creativity.<br>
<br>
<blockquote cite="mid4243A249.4020507@acm.org" type="cite"><br>
With a story, you want the decision making in the hands of the author.
I'm very skeptical about the idea that we can program a computer to
look at the input from participants in an interactive drama and make a
good decision about how the story should go. We need something that
makes it easy for an author to look at the input from participants in
real time and make decisions and have those decisions be implemented.
It's the equivalent of having a GUI to tell the computer what to do.
The story remains under the control of the author and the technology
allows it to reach out to many people.
  <br>
</blockquote>
--&gt; I undertand that you are skeptical. As a researcher on
Interactive Drama, I also want that the story remains under control of
the author, but by "under control", I do not mean that the author is
choosing each possible step in the story. Rather, I believe that some
higher control is possible. The challenge is that the system does not
become an intelligent and not controlable black box, that the author is
not happy to work with, and which can not produce interesting
experience.<br>
<br>
<br>
Nicolas<br>
<br>
<a href="http://www.idtension.com";>www.idtension.com</a><br>
<br>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Dr Nicolas Szilas
Department of Computing
Macquarie University
Sydney NSW 2109 Australia
ph:  +61 2 9850 9113
fax: +61 2 9850 9551

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