Survey of the State of the Art in Natural Language Generation: Core tasks, applications and evaluation

This paper surveys the current state of the art in Natural Language Generation (NLG), defined as the task of generating text or speech from non-linguistic input. A survey of NLG is timely in view of the changes that the field has undergone over the past decade or so, especially in relation to new (usually data-driven) methods, as well as new applications of NLG technology. This survey therefore aims to (a) give an up-to-date synthesis of research on the core tasks in NLG and the architectures adopted in which such tasks are organised; (b) highlight a number of relatively recent research topics that have arisen partly as a result of growing synergies between NLG and other areas of artificial intelligence; (c) draw attention to the challenges in NLG evaluation, relating them to similar challenges faced in other areas of Natural Language Processing, with an emphasis on different evaluation methods and the relationships between them.Comment: Published in Journal of AI Research (JAIR), volume 61, pp 75-170. 118 pages, 8 figures, 1 tabl

Making sense of assets: Community asset mapping and related approaches for cultivating capacities

This working paper critically reviews some main aspects from asset based approaches highlights key strengths and weaknesses for future research/development. Drawing on a large body of reports and relevant literature we draw on different theoretical traditions and critiques, as well as practices and processes embedded within a broad range of approaches including, widely acknowledged frameworks such Asset Based Community Development (ABCD), Appreciative Inquiry (AI), Sustainable Livelihood Approaches (SLA) and Community Capitals Framework (CCF). Although these are presented as distinct approaches, there is a sense of evolution through them and many of them overlap (in terms of both theories and methodologies). We also include emerging frameworks, including geographical, socio-spatial, visual and creative approaches, stemming from a number of projects within AHRC’s Connected Communities programme and additional collaborations

Narrative Storytelling In VR Through Gaming

Gaming has consistently been acknowledged as a storytelling medium for its signature ability to provide user interaction. As virtual reality becomes a more prominent gaming environment, it will be expected to carry on the tradition of storytelling. Currently, virtual reality is in a state of infancy, where products offer little sophistication and serve as amusements rather than storytellers. As this changeover takes effect, there are certain discrepancies which will hinder a transition from flat screen gaming to virtual reality gaming. In order to create a successful narrative driven virtual reality game, these discrepancies must be addressed in a meaningful way. This thesis will also experiment with the aforementioned differences by developing a virtual reality game in Unreal Engine 4

Designing Mixed-Initiative Video Games

The development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) enables humans to co-create content with machines. The unexpectedness of AI-generated content can bring inspiration and entertainment to users. However, the co-creation interactions are always designed for content creators and have poor accessibility. To explore gamification of mixed-initiative co-creation and make human-AI interactions accessible and fun for players, I prototyped Snake Story, a mixed-initiative game where players can select AI-generated texts to write a story of a snake by playing a "Snake" like game. A controlled experiment was conducted to investigate the dynamics of player-AI interactions with and without the game component in the designed interface. As a result of a study with 11 players (n=11), I found that players utilized different strategies when playing with the two versions, game mechanics significantly affected the output stories, players' creative process, as well as role perceptions, and players with different backgrounds showed different preferences for the two versions. Based on these results, I further discussed considerations for mixed-initiative game design. This work aims to inspire the design of engaging co-creation experiences

The challenge of Automatic Level Generation for platform videogames based on Stories and Quests

In this article we bring the concepts of narrativism and ludology to automatic level generation for platform videogames. The initial motivation is to understand how this genre has been used as a storytelling medium. Based on a narrative theory of games, the differences among several titles have been identified. In addition, we propose a set of abstraction layers to describe the content of a quest-based story in the particular context of videogames. Regarding automatic level generation for platform videogames, we observed that the existing approaches are directed to lower abstraction concepts such as avatar movements without a particular context or meaning. This leads us to the challenge of automatically creating more contextualized levels rather than only a set of consistent and playable entertaining tasks. With that in mind, a set of higher level design patterns are presented and their potential usages are envisioned and discussed

Procedural Content Generation in 3 Dimensions using Wave Function Collapse in Minecraft

This investigation into the effectiveness of Wave Function Collapse as a Procedural Content Generation Technique (PCG) in Minecraft sets out to determine whether this method can be used easily by players and game designers to generate content that mimics the original content. We also set out to determine whether this technique can be implemented by game designers or community modders easily enough to improve the default generation of settlements in Minecraft. We grade the effectiveness of our output using metrics provided by the Generative Design in Minecraft Competition in order to test whether generated content is effective. Tests were conducted on terrain that was taken from an existing Minecraft world, and featured a mixture of structures ranging from simple to complex in design meant to simulate structures that players would build near the beginning of the game. Unfortunately, our conclusion is that in it’s most basic form, Wave Function Collapse is unsuited as a PCG tool for Minecraft. During the course of our testing, we found that the run times for simple algorithms were too long to be effective, and the algorithm fails to generate content for many of the test cases regularly. In order to make it more suitable, a number of improvements are suggested including global constraints, weight balancing, and layering PCG methods. Overall, this approach has potential, but requires more work before it is a suitable replacement to current PCG methods for Minecraft settlement generation

Better Than Conscious? The Brain, the Psyche, Behavior, and Institutions

The title of this chapter is deliberately provocative. Intuitively, many will be inclined to see conscious control of mental process as a good thing. Yet control comes at a high price. The consciously not directly controlled, automatic, parallel processing of information is not only much faster, it also handles much more information, and it does so in a qualitatively different manner. This different mental machinery is not adequate for all tasks. The human ability to consciously deliberate has evolved for good reason. But on many more tasks than one might think at first sight, intuitive decision-making, or at least an intuitive component in a more complex mental process, does indeed improve performance. This chapter presents the issue, offers concepts to understand it, discusses the effects in terms of problem solving capacity, contrasts norms for saying when this is a good thing, and points to scientific and real world audiences for this work.

Planning formalisms and authoring in interactive storytelling

Interacting Storytelling systems integrate AI techniques such as planning with narrative representations to generate stories. In this paper, we discuss the use of planning formalisms in Interactive Storytelling from the perspective of story generation and authoring. We compare two different planning formalisms, Hierarchical Task Network (HTN) planning and Heuristic Search Planning (HSP). While HTN provide a strong basis for narrative coherence in the context of interactivity, HSP offer additional flexibility and the generation of stories and the mechanisms for generating comic situations