ECAI 2014 Symposium on AI in Angry Birds - Call for Papers

August 20, 2014, Prague, Czech Republic. 

While Angry Birds is a simple game that can be easily understood and played by almost anyone, building a computer program that can play the game as well as humans is a very challenging task. This is partly due to the very large action space of the game -- birds can be released at almost arbitrary rational angles and the tapping time seems continuous -- but also because the outcome of an action is not known in advance without actually executing or simulating it. These two points mean that brute force search and simulation do not seem to be useful for identifying successful solutions.   

Instead, qualitative reasoning and machine learning techniques may be helpful in dealing with the huge search spaces, characterising the properties of objects, and overcoming the uncertainty that comes from noisy object detections or inaccurate physical models. Other AI techniques such as planning or diagnosis may be used for determining good action sequences and for analysing unexpected failures. Overall a large spectrum of AI techniques can be useful in developing a successful AI agent that can play Angry Birds at a human level. Moreover, a combination of methods and techniques from several AI sub-disciplines seems necessary.

The developed solutions could prove to be an important step towards intelligent systems that can deal with real-world situations. While Angry Birds is certainly not a real-world problem, it is more realistic than many scenarios typically studied in AI. 

The ECAI 2014 Symposium on AI in Angry Birds will be held together with the ECAI 2014 Angry Birds AI Competition in Prague, Czech Republic. The purpose of this symposium is to present original scientific work of high quality related to the problems of developing an intelligent Angry Birds playing agent. Papers must clearly demonstrate, why the proposed approaches are beneficial. This could be based on the available benchmarks or on comparing with the provided sample agent. However, purely theoretical work is also welcome. Authors of submitted papers are encouraged to also submit an agent to the ECAI 2014 Angry Birds AI Competition in order to demonstrate how well their approaches work. Further details about the competition can be found at aibirds.org.

Papers will be selected based on their originality, significance and relevance, and must be of high quality. Submitted papers will only be reviewed by program committee members and reviewers who do not participate in the ECAI 2014 Angry Birds AI competition themselves. Papers will not be made available to competing teams and will be treated confidentially. Electronic proceedings will only be made available at the start of the ECAI 2014 Angry Birds AI competition on August 18. 

Accepted papers will be presented during the ECAI 2014 Angry Birds AI competition and we will select papers for either long or short presentation.  At least one author of each accepted paper must register for ECAI 2014 and present the paper at the Symposium. 

 

SUBMISSION 

Papers should be limited to 6 pages plus at most one additional page for references. Papers should include author names and affiliations. 

Submissions should be formatted in PDF according to ECAI guidelines and submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Formatting guidelines and electronic templates are available on the ECAI 2014 website: www.ecai2014.org/ecai2014.zip 

 

PROCEEDINGS

Accepted papers will be published on the aibirds.org website. Authors will retain copyright and papers can be submitted elsewhere. 

 

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission Deadline: 
    11 July 2014 (extended)
Acceptance Notification: 
    14 July 2014 
Camera Ready Deadline: 
    28 July 2014
Symposium: 
    20 August 2014

 

ORGANISERS:

  • Jochen Renz (Australian National University)
  • Stephen Gould (Australian National University)
  • Jason Jingshi Li (Australian National University)