Artificial Intelligence for General Game Playing

Michael Genesereth, Artificial Intelligence for General Game Playing. A GENERAL GAME PLAYING (GGP) SYSTEM is one that can play arbitrary games based solely on formal game descriptions supplied at "runtime". (Translation: it does not get the rules until the game starts.) Unlike specialized game players, such as Deep Blue, general game players do not rely on algorithms designed in advance by their programmers for a specific game; instead, they utilize general technologies appropriate to any (discrete) game. In this brief talk, I will summarize the challenges of general game playing and techniques for meeting those challenges; I will describe our annual GGP competition; and I will talk about the practical and theoretical value of work in this area.

Michael Genesereth is an associate professor in the Computer Science Department at Stanford University. He received his Sc.B. in Physics from M.I.T. and his Ph.D. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard University. Dr. Genesereth is most known for his work on Computational Logic and applications of that work in Enterprise Management, Electronic Commerce, and Computational Law. He is one of the founders of Teknowledge, CommerceNet, and Mergent Systems. Genesereth is the current director of the Logic Group at Stanford and research director of CodeX(the Stanford Center for Computers and Law). Publications include Logical Foundations of Artificial Intelligence and Data Integration - The Relational Logic Approach.

Interactive media and games increasingly pervade and shape our society. In addition to their dominant roles in entertainment, videogames play growing roles in education, arts, science and health. This seminar series brings together a diverse set of experts to provide interdisciplinary perspectives on these media regarding their history, technologies, scholarly research, industry, artistic value and potential future. As the speakers and title suggest, the series also provides a topical lens for the diverse aspects of our lives.