Ever since the birth of the idea of artificial intelligence, games have been helping artificial intelligence (AI) research progress. Games not only pose interesting and complex problems for AI to solve, they also offer a canvas for creativity and expression which is experienced by their users. Thus, arguably, games are a rare domain where science (problem solving) meets art and interaction: these ingredients have made games a unique and favourite domain for the study of AI. But it is not only AI that is advanced through games; games have also been advanced through AI research. AI has been helping games to get better on several fronts: in the way we play them, in the way we understand their inner functionalities, in the way we design them, and in the way we understand play, interaction and creativity.
Yannakakis and Togelius, Artificial Intelligence and Games, 2018. Springer Nature
The AI research group at the Institute of Digital Games is performing cutting edge research at the crossroads of AI and games pushing the boundaries of the field with innovate work being published in top-tier journals and conferences. In addition to academic research supported by European and national funding, the Institute’s AI research group also collaborates actively with industry giants such as Ubisoft.
Researchers of the AI research group have had their work awarded at numerous conferences and competitions in the field of computer science, particularly as relates to: artificial intelligence, machine learning, affective computing, creative computing, and player modelling.
The AI research group currently consists of 9 researchers: the team is co-directed by Prof. Georgios Yannakakis and Dr Antonios Liapis and involves postdoctoral fellows (Dr Kostantinos Makantasis, Dr Iro Voulgari, Dr Daniele Gravina), PhD Students (Daniel Karavolos, David Melhart, Emil Kastbjerg) and Research Associates (Kostantinos Sfikas).