At this year's GDC AI Summit, we are holding a panel called, "AI Pre-Mortem: How to Approach Your AI Problems".
The official description of the session is:
AI for games can be a complicated area - particularly since there is often more than one approach to solving a problem. Sometimes, the best way to learn about how to approach AI problems is to hear veteran devs work through them. This panel features 4 AI developers who will take on a series of AI issues - from the mundane to the esoteric and challenging -- and talk through how they would think about and handle them. Some of the problems will be ones the panelists have encountered, some of them they will solicit from the community during the weeks leading up to GDC, and (if time permits and they are really feeling crazy) some will be from audience members right there during the session! They may not always come up with solutions, but will certainly try to think through the problem!
The panel is staffed by a number of creative, long-time AI devs from around the industry representing over 40 years of AI programming experience. Specifically, they are:
- Michael Dawe | Lead Software Engineer, GSN Games
- Rez Graham | Senior AI Programmer, Independent
- Brian Schwab | Lead AI/Gameplay Programmer, Magic Leap
- Damian Isla | Co-Founder / Tech, The Molasses Flood
I will be moderating -- often playing the role of designer asking, challenging, and providing the occasional twist just to keep things... interesting.
As mentioned, we are asking for ideas of interesting topics for the panelists to discuss. Due to time constraints, we will only be spending between 5 and 10 minutes on each topic so they can't be enormously complex. However, they also don't have to be beginner level issues. In fact, we would like to have a few head-scratchers for our panelists to address!
Whether you are attending GDC this year or not, we would like your input right here on this post. Post a short, direct, interesting game dev scenario -- particularly one that has stumped you for a while -- that you would like to learn how veteran AI programmers approach. We will then select some of the most compelling questions and pose them to the panelists during the session.
The plan is to ask GDC release this session for free on the GDC Vault. Even if you aren't able to attend, you may get your question answered!
So... whatcha got?