GDC09: first details of AI Summit

Initial speakers and sessions have been confirmed for the first two-day AI Summit, which takes place at GDC09 in March 2009.

Key speakers at the summit, which ‘promises to give attendees an inside look at key AI architectures and issues within successful commercial games’, include Soren Johnson of EA Maxis, Rockstar Leeds’ Brett Laming, and Crystal Dynamics’ Daniel Kline.

Nintendo’s Steve Rabin, who has assumed the role of principal advisor and speaker, said: "What’s truly exciting is that AI has the greatest potential of any technology to create brand new gameplay experiences and to broaden the market. With unparalleled AI industry experience, the AI Summit at GDC is an insider’s look at how AI will impact the future of game development."

Johnson, AI programmer and designer for Spore will be joined by AI professionals from EA Montreal and Ubisoft Montreal, as part of a panel ‘exploring ways to manage the gap between designers and AI programmers to help establish better practices for this important (and inevitable) collaboration’.

Laming’s session is titled ‘From the Ground Up: AI Architecture and Design Patterns’, and will focus on GTA Chinatown Wars. Elsewhere EALA’s LMNO lead AI programmer Borut Pfeifer will join Kline to discuss ‘practical approaches to pushing the boundaries of character AI, past successes and ideas for the future,’ while former Halo 3 AI lead Damian Isla and MIT Media Lab’s Peter Gorniak will head a session titled ‘Beyond Behavior: An Introduction to Knowledge Representation’.

The inaugural AI Summit will run on March 23rd and 24th, 2009. For more details, check out the GDC website.