Argax Project:: Dissertation: A Rough Draft Node

Node Status: COMPLETE

Motivations

There are a number of reasons to create a true digital interactive drama system.

The first reason is that doing so requires a degree of automated narrative intelligence. Humans tell stories easily and nearly constantly. And yet--partly due to the large amount of real-world knowledge required--getting a computer to understand or generate stories proves incredibly difficult. Such narrative intelligence currently remains a challenging problem for the artificial intelligence community.

Secondly, interactive dramas are potentially very lucrative. Computer games are already a multi-billion dollar industry. Yet most of the games that purport to be story-based are too linear or restrictive, or else the story serves only as a context for combat or puzzle-solving. If games really were capable of adaptive story production--including believable characters and complex social interactions--it could lead to a whole new market of interest to people who don't currently play computer games.

Aside from entertainment, there are serious or practical applications, such as a teaching or training tool. Currently, virtual training simulations can be used to train people to handle or explore complicated situations. For example, software already exists that is used to train soldiers how to interact with civilians in order to achieve certain mission goals. If such software could be extended to produce well-formed stories, it may make such learning experiences more memorable.

But the most important reason to pursue interactive drama is that it would be a new form of human expression. Traditional narratives let us explore the Other. While we might empathize greatly with a character in a film or novel, they make their own choices and we, as audience, simply follow along, slightly removed. Interactive dramas, on the other hand, would allow exploration of the Self. Whether following our own inclinations, or those of a character role we assume, we would be able to make our own choices in the story. We would then be able to explore the consequences of those choices as the story unfolds.

Exactly what those consequences might be depends on the author of the interactive drama. Instead of writing single--or even branching--storylines, authors of interactive dramas will write the rules that produce a number of possible stories. This is will be a challenging creative form--writing a world or system of potentials, rather than a concrete tale.

So interactive drama proves to be an interesting AI challenge, potentially both lucrative and educational. Yet most importantly, it may provide a new experience for users and a new creative form for authors.

==>

ToDo

Cite that training sim software. Also add a sentence and cite on projects already moving in this direction--like that one project involving the breakout on the tropical island.
This Other/Self idea is not mine, though I love it. I need to track down where I read this... I think it was on a ludologist webpage somewhere. G. Frasca, perhaps?
Most of this stuff applies best to ID, rather than IN. Come through and clean it up after I add the earlier ID section.
Cite that first Oz experiment in support of Self/Other distinction? The difference between being interactor vs. audience.