Ethical encounters with autonomous agents

Anthropomorphic agents with increasing levels of autonomy are being used in a growing number of applications. This is especially evident in games where characters are designed with human likeness both in appearance and behaviour, with a level of autonomy that allows them to surprise and engage the player. However, with these autonomous system there is the possibility that non-intended behaviours may emerge, exposing the user to potentially ethically questionable encounters. In this position paper we argue for further protections against such glitches through the implementation of artificial ethics-based behavioural safeguards. We begin by outlining the background and specific challenges of this emerging field, before proposing a direction for future research. We conclude with a call to action, arguing that significant cross-disciplinary research, and engagement from the HCI community is required in this area

Streaming with Students

The video games streaming format has a number of advantages for student engagement initiatives. Firstly, a large number of students are already using these venues as entertainment. By running initiatives on a live stream service we take activities to a platform that the students are likely already visiting, rather than directing them to a service they wouldn’t otherwise use. Secondly, video games are inherently entertaining, the format keeps students engaged even during breaks in interaction. We have been experimenting using video games live stream to open up a new channel of communication between staff and students. We have found that the format supports informal dialogue between the broadcasting team, and their audience and have created this guide to support other educators who may wish to experiment with the format

Virtual Forestry Generation: Evaluating Models for Tree Placement in Games

A handful of approaches have been previously proposed to generate procedurally virtual forestry for virtual worlds and computer games, including plant growth models and point distribution methods. However, there has been no evaluation to date which assesses how effective these algorithms are at modelling real-world phenomena. In this paper, we tackle this issue by evaluating three algorithms used in the generation of virtual forests—a randomly uniform point distribution method (control), a plant competition model, and an iterative random point distribution technique. Our results show that a plant competition model generated more believable content when viewed from an aerial perspective. Interestingly, however, we also found that a randomly uniform point distribution method produced forestry which was rated higher in playability and photorealism, when viewed from a first-person perspective. We conclude that the objective of the game designer is important to consider when selecting an algorithm to generate forestry, as the algorithms produce forestry that is perceived differently

Experience and guidance for the use of sketching and low-fidelity visualisation-design in teaching

We, like other educators, are keen to develop the next generation of visualization designers. The use of sketching and low-fidelity designs are becoming popular methods to help developers and students consider many alternative ideas and plan what they should build. But especially within an education setting, there are often many challenges to persuade students that they should sketch and consider low-fidelity prototypes. Students can be unwilling to contemplate alternatives, reluctant to use pens and paper, or sketch on paper, and inclined to code the first idea in their mind. In this paper we discuss these issues, and investigate strategies to help increase the breadth of low-fidelity designs, especially for developing data-visualization tools. We draw together experiences and advice of how we have used the Five Design-Sheets method over eight years, for different assessment styles and across two institutions. We follow our experiences with an equal measure of advice. This paper would be useful for anyone who wishes to use sketching in their teaching, or to improve their own experiences

A cost-effective virtual environment for simulating and training powered wheelchairs manoeuvres

Control of a powered wheelchair is often not intuitive, making training of new users a challenging and sometimes hazardous task. Collisions, due to a lack of experience can result in injury for the user and other individuals. By conducting training activities in virtual reality (VR), we can potentially improve driving skills whilst avoiding the risks inherent to the real world. However, until recently VR technology has been expensive and limited the commercial feasibility of a general training solution. We describe Wheelchair-Rift, a cost effective prototype simulator that makes use of the Oculus Rift head mounted display and the Leap Motion hand tracking device. It has been assessed for face validity by a panel of experts from a local Posture and Mobility Service. Initial results augur well for our cost-effective training solutio

Creating explanatory visualizations of algorithms for active learning

Visualizations have been used to explain algorithms to learners, in order to help them understand complex processes. These ‘explanatory visualizations’ can help learners understand computer algorithms and data-structures. But most are created by an educator and merely watched by the learner. In this paper, we explain how we get learners to plan and develop their own explanatory visualizations of algorithms. By actively developing their own visualizations learners gain a deeper insight of the algorithms that they are explaining. These depictions can also help other learners understand the algorithm

Exploring Visuo-haptic Feedback Congruency in Virtual Reality

Visuo-haptic feedback is an important aspect of virtual reality experiences, with several previous works investigating its benefits and effects. A key aspect of this domain is congruency of crossmodal feedback and how it affects users. However, an important sub-domain which has received surprisingly little focus is visuo-haptic congruency in an interactive multisensory setting. This is especially important given that multisensory integration is crucial to player immersion in the context of virtual reality video games. In this paper, we attempt to address this lack of research. To achieve this, a total of 50 participants played a virtual reality racing game with either congruent or incongruent visuo-haptic feedback. Specifically, these users engaged in a driving simulator with physical gear shift interfaces, with one treatment group using a stick-shift gearbox, and the other using a paddle-shift setup. The virtual car they drove (A Formula Rookie race car) was only visually congruent with the stick-shift setup. A motion simulator was also used to provide synchronous vestibular cues and diversify the range of modalities in multisensory integration. The racing simulator used was Project CARS 2, one of the world’s most popular commercial racing simulators. Our findings showed no significant differences between the groups in measures of user presence or in-game performance, counter to previous work regarding visuo-haptic congruency. However, the Selfevaluation of Performance PQ subscale was notably close to significance. Our results can be used to better inform games and simulation developers, especially those targeting virtual reality

Evaluating Models for Virtual Forestry Generation and Tree Placement in Games

A handful of approaches have been previously proposed to generate procedurally virtual forestry for virtual worlds and computer games, including plant growth models and point distribution methods. However, there has been no evaluation to date which assesses how effective these algorithms are at modelling real-world phenomena. In this paper we tackle this issue by evaluating three algorithms used in the generation of virtual forests - a randomly uniform point distribution method (control), a plant competition model, and an iterative random point distribution technique. Our results show that a plant competition model generated more believable content when viewed from an aerial perspective. We also found that a randomly uniform point distribution method produced forest visualisations which were rated highest in playability and photorealism, when viewed from a first-person perspective. Our results indicate that when it comes to believability, the relationship between viewing perspective and procedural generation algorithm is more important than previously thought

Optimising Underwater Environments for Mobile VR

Mobile Virtual Reality (VR) has advanced considerably in the last few years, driven by advances in smartphone technology. There are now a number of commercial offerings available, from smartphone powered headsets to standalone units with full positional tracking. Similarly best practices in VR have matured quickly, facilitating comfortable and immersive VR experiences. There remains however many optimisation challenges when working with these devices, as while the need to render at high frame rates is universal, the hardware is limited by both computational power and battery capacity. There is also often a requirement that apps run smoothly across a wide variety of headsets. In this paper, we describe lessons learned in rendering and optimising underwater environments for mobile VR, based on our experience developing the popular aquatic safari application 'Ocean Rift'. We start by analyzing essential best practices for mobile app development, before describing low-cost techniques for creating immersive underwater environments. While some techniques discussed are universal to modern mobile VR development, we also consider issues that are unique to underwater applications

Towards ethical robots: revisiting Braitenberg's vehicles

The development of software and machines capable of making ethical judgements is a topic of great interest with both the research communities and the public. Debates over the possibility and practicality of such systems have only intensified with the increased use of robotics in the military arena and the ubiquity of AI in commercial products. Modern innovations, such as the driverless car, will likely make artificial ethical agents a legal necessity. As a research field, it has received relatively little attention compared to other, more traditional, AI problems. In this paper, we propose a bottom-up reactive system that provides one possible solution. We will begin by describing the motivation to this work: the development of artificial ethical agents could both mitigate some fears about the future of autonomous AI, and providing insight into human moral reasoning. We then explore the related work, including the current attempts at simulating ethics. We describe our novel approach to ethical simulation, Vessels; a Braitenberg Vehicle inspired reactive agent approach. We, then, demonstrate how Vessels can be configured to simulate both Egoism and Altruism, comparing our simulations to the normative theory.</p