Old Email Archive

digest 1999-02-03 #001.txt


11:31 PM 2/2/99 -0800
From: "Society for Literature & Science" 

Daily SLS Email Digest
-> Narrative and Artificial Intelligence
by Phoebe Sengers 

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 2 Feb 1999 04:32:25 -0800
From: Phoebe Sengers 

Subject: Narrative and Artificial Intelligence
Dear SLSers,
Michael Mateas and I are organizing a symposium on Narrative
Intelligence, which focuses on the interrelationships between narrative
and Artificial Intelligence (call for submissions attached).  The
target
audience is largely AI researchers, but we are also interested in
including several participants who can bring outside perspectives on
the
relations between narrative and AI, including for example understanding
how narrative works within the rhetoric of AI and the implications of
different perspectives on narrative (from art, cultural studies,
narrative psychology, narrative theory, etc.) for the practice of AI
research.  We would very much welcome contributions from SLS-ers.  I'll
be happy to answer any questions you might have about the symposium.
Phoebe Sengers
Fulbright Scholar
Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM)
Institute for Visual Media
Karlsruhe, Germany
phoebe@zkm.de
Call for Participation:
AAAI 1999 Fall Symposium on Narrative Intelligence
November 5-7, 1999
Sea Crest Conference Center on Cape Cod
North Falmouth, Massachusetts
While narrative has long been a theme in AI, it has recently
experienced a surge of popularity.  Researchers in various subfields,
including story generation and understanding, agent architecture,
and interface agents, have taken independent forays into narrative,
finding it a fruitful way to rethink some basic issues in AI.  Strands
of work in Narrative Intelligence (NI) include the following:
- - *Models of human narrative cognition*: Since narrative is an
important part of the way humans understand the world and each other,
some researchers are looking at ways in which artificial agents can
have similar narrative capabilities.
- - *Architectures for generating narratively understandable behavior*:
Some researchers are building story-telling systems, autonomous
agents, and interface agents which can generate narratively structured
behavior.
- - *Meta-studies of narrative as part of AI research*: AI researchers,
being human, themselves use narrative to understand their own work.
An understanding of this narrative process can improve the quality and
social applicability of AI technology.
Researchers in NI have drawn from many research traditions, including
art, literary theory, (narrative) psychology, and cultural studies.
The goal for our symposium, Narrative Intelligence, is to bring
researchers from these disparate perspectives together to talk about
what we have learned about narrative and its potential for AI.
Scope and questions of the symposium
Within AI, this symposium solicits work from, but not limited to, the
following areas:
* Story understanding
* Story generation
* Narrative structure in interface design
* Narrative structure in the design of autonomous agents
* Believable agents (insofar as they participate in narrative
structure)
* Interactive story-telling
In addition, because NI researchers have drawn deep inspiration
from concepts of narrative from other disciplines, we hope to
broaden and solidify our understanding of narrative by including
several participants from other research traditions, including:
* Narrative psychology
* Narrative theory
* Art
* Cultural studies
More information about this symposium can be found at
http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~michaelm/narrative.html
Submission Information:
Potential participants should submit a short paper (3 to 5 pages -
see web page above for more information) describing their work in this
area.  The paper should make clear which approaches to narrative are
being drawn on and how they apply to AI.  All submissions should be
sent via electronic mail, in plain ASCII format, to Michael Mateas at
michaelm@cs.cmu.edu.
Submissions for the symposia are due March 31, 1999
Notification of acceptance will be given by May 7, 1999
Material to be included in the working notes of the symposium must be
received by August 27, 1999.
Organizing Committee:
Kerstin Dautenhahn
University of Reading Department of Cybernetics
Clark Elliott
DePaul University Institute for Applied Artificial Intelligence
James Lester
North Carolina State University Department of Computer Science
Michael Mateas (co-chair)
Carnegie Mellon University Department of Computer Science
Chrystopher Nehaniv
University of Hertfordshire Interactive Systems Engineering
Phoebe Sengers (co-chair)
Center for Art and Media Technology (ZKM Karlsruhe)
General Symposia Information:
This symposium is one of five being offered in the 1999 AAAI Fall
Symposium Series.  Symposia will be limited to between forty and
sixty participants.  Each participant will be expected to attend a
single symposium.  Working notes will be prepared and distributed to
participants in each symposium.  In addition to invited participants,
a limited number of interested parties will be able to register in
each symposium on a first-come, first-served basis.  Registration
information will be available in early July.  To obtain registration
information, write to:
AAAI Fall Symposium Series
445 Burgess Drive
Menlo Park, CA 94025-3442
Voice: 650-328-3123
Fax: 650-321-4457
fss@aaai.org
www.aaai.org/Symposia/symposia.html