The graphics and AI technology in modern simulations and games have brought new gains in realism in the depiction of human behavior. Current systems can represent a good deal of complexity in environment, avatar appearance, and interaction, and inroads are being made into language, cognition, and some aspects of society and culture. Now that large groups of simulated people can inhabit complex environments, with intricate animations and interaction capabilities, it is all the more evident that the behavior of computer-controlled agents fall far short of reality.
In this symposium, we plan to investigate difficulties agents have in operating realistically in social and cultural contexts, and in adapting to changing situations as do real people. The future development of realistic and interesting games in social contexts, and simulations with real predictive power and training efficacy, requires application of more profound conceptions of human behavior.
To this end, presentations and discussion are planned on the following topics:
- An examination of cultural phenomena and their use in modern games and simulations. This includes:
- Several papers and presentations
- Demonstration of current training simulation technology, such as:
- Forterra's massively multi-player OLIVE platform
- Tactical Iraqi by Tactical Language Institute.
- Presentations on cultural and social simulations
- Presentations on creating adaptive agents for synthetic training environments
- Presentations on behavior modeling architectures that support cultural and/or adaptive behavior