"Explainable AI, Adaptive Opponents and Games for Training"

09/24/04: 10:30 AM
11th Floor Large Conference Room
Host: Patrick Pantel, schedule

Abstract: In the commercial platform training aids project, the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) seeks to develop training aids that capitalize on the technologies, development practices, and hardware of the commercial games industry. To date the project has produced Full Spectrum Command, a PC-based training aid currently in use at Ft. Benning, and Full Spectrum Warrior, an Xbox-based training aid currently undergoing pedagogical evaluation by the Army Research Institute. A modified, commercial version of Full Spectrum Warrior was also the #1 selling Xbox title in June of 2004. While developing these systems two research opportunities were identified where improvements over standard game industry practices could result in more effective training. The first area, explainable AI, seeks to enhance the AI controlling non-player characters (NPCs) to allow those NPCs to explain their decisions, choices and behavior during the after-action review. The second area, adaptive op ponents, seeks to move away from the game industry standard of static, scripted AI towards a more dynamic AI that adapts to the training environment and needs of the student. This presentation will briefly describe the commercial platform training aids project and then present the explainable AI and adaptive opponent research in more detail.

About Michael Van Lent: Dr. Michael van Lent completed his Ph.D. in 2000 under the direction of Dr. John Laird at the University of Michigan. His dissertation, titled Learning Task-Performance Knowledge through Observation, explored how knowledge for real-time intelligent agents, such as simulated tactical air combat pilots, could be acquired from observations of human experts more quickly and cheaply than traditional knowledge acquisition techniques. After a one year post-doc at the University of Michigan, Dr. van Lent joined the University of Southern California's Institute for Creative Technologies (ICT) as a research scientist. Dr. van Lent was the lead researcher for ICT's Commercial Platform Training Aids project which resulted in Full Spectrum Command, a PC-based company command training aid, and Full Spectrum Warrior, an Xbox-based squad leader training aid. Now a project leader, Dr. van Lent's areas of interest include advanced AI techniques for commercial computer games, the use of commercial game technology for training and education, and the integration of commercial game technology with military simulation technology. His current resea rch focuses on explainable artificial intelligence and adaptive opponents for military training and computer games. Dr. van Lent is also active in the growing collaboration between academic researchers and commercial game developers as the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Game Development and a frequent contributor to the Game Developer's Conference.

Last updated: Mon Jun 19 17:44:06 2006