Gestural control of sonic swarms: Composing with grouped sound objects

This paper outlines an alternative controller designed to diffuse and manipulate a swarm of sounds in 3- dimensional space and discusses the compositional issues that emerge from its use. The system uses an algorithm from a nature-derived model describing the spatial behavior of a swarm. The movement of the swarm is mapped in the 3- dimensional space and a series of sound transformation functions for the sonic agents are implemented. The notion of causal relationships is explored regarding the spatial movement of the swarm and sound transformation of the agents by employing the physical controller as a performance, compositional and diffusion tool

HoME: a Household Multimodal Environment

We introduce HoME: a Household Multimodal Environment for artificial agents to learn from vision, audio, semantics, physics, and interaction with objects and other agents, all within a realistic context. HoME integrates over 45,000 diverse 3D house layouts based on the SUNCG dataset, a scale which may facilitate learning, generalization, and transfer. HoME is an open-source, OpenAI Gym-compatible platform extensible to tasks in reinforcement learning, language grounding, sound-based navigation, robotics, multi-agent learning, and more. We hope HoME better enables artificial agents to learn as humans do: in an interactive, multimodal, and richly contextualized setting.Comment: Presented at NIPS 2017's Visually-Grounded Interaction and Language Worksho

Paradoxes of rational agency and formal systems that verify their own soundness

We consider extensions of Peano arithmetic which include an assertibility predicate. Any such system which is arithmetically sound effectively verifies its own soundness. This leads to the resolution of a range of paradoxes involving rational agents who are licensed to act under precisely defined conditions.Comment: 10 page

Filterscape: energy recycling in a creative ecosystem

This paper extends previous work in evolutionary ecosystemic approaches to generative art. Filterscape, adopts the implicit fitness specification that is fundamental to this approach and explores the use of resource recycling as a means of generating coherent sonic diversity in a generative sound work. Filterscape agents consume and deposit energy that is manifest in the simulation as sound. Resource recycling is shown to support cooperative as well as competitive survival strategies. In the context of our simulation, these strategies are recognised by their characteristic audible signatures. The model provides a novel means to generate sonic diversity through de-centralised agent interactions

Software agents in music and sound art research/creative work: Current state and a possible direction

Composers, musicians and computer scientists have begun to use software-based agents to create music and sound art in both linear and non-linear (non-predetermined form and/or content) idioms, with some robust approaches now drawing on various disciplines. This paper surveys recent work: agent technology is first introduced, a theoretical framework for its use in creating music/sound art works put forward, and an overview of common approaches then given. Identifying areas of neglect in recent research, a possible direction for further work is then briefly explored. Finally, a vision for a new hybrid model that integrates non-linear, generative, conversational and affective perspectives on interactivity is proposed

Social dilemmas, time preferences and technology adoption in a commons problem

Agents interacting on a body of water choose between technologies to catch fish. One is harmless to the resource, as it allows full recovery; the other yields high immediate catches, but low(er) future catches. Strategic interaction in one 'objective'resource game may induce several 'subjective' games in the class of social dilemmas. Which unique 'subjective'game is actually played depends crucially on how the agents discount their future payo¤s. We examine equilibrium behavior and its consequences on sustainability of the common-pool resource system under exponential and hyperbolic discounting. A sufficient degree of patience on behalf of the agents may lead to equilibrium behavior averting exhaustion of the resource, though full restraint (both agents choosing the ecologically or environmentally sound technology) is not necessarily achieved. Furthermore, if the degree of patience between agents is sufficiently dissimilar, the more patient is exploited by the less patient one in equilibrium. We demonstrate the generalizability of our approach developed throughout the paper. We provide recommendations to reduce the enormous complexity surrounding the general cases