But Arthur and Belinda should already be involved in a ''go out'' activity themselves. This activity could then point out to Arthur that his prestige will drop if his lets the flirting go on. If only activities could talk to one another...
quote:Original post by Diodor
But Arthur and Belinda should already be involved in a ''go out'' activity themselves. This activity could then point out to Arthur that his prestige will drop if his lets the flirting go on. If only activities could talk to one another...
i think the two activities are independent of one another - if their prior activity had been ''stay in to watch tv'' and charlie happened to live with them then the same reactions ought to be evident...
Having activities communicate doesn''t make sense in context. Activities attempt to recruit agents to fill roles, not act in accordance with one another. As it is the people outside the activity (indeed, those inside it as well) don''t know the activities intentions. No more than you know your school''s (an activity) intentions apart from those it communicates to you. Each agent is given offers from activities, perceives the external world and has internal desires, which culminate in their eventual behaviour. All the mix-match of social and cultural behaviour occurs as an emergence of the interaction of separate activities. No communication necessary.
Arthur has to notice the flirting himself to act on it, the activities certainly won''t tell him.
Arthur has to notice the flirting himself to act on it, the activities certainly won''t tell him.
quote:Original post by MikeD
Activities attempt to recruit agents to fill roles, not act in accordance with one another.
Okay, that statement clarifies things a lot. Clearly, the roles that activities are trying to fill are predefined according to some higher belief system (that of the game designer/developer). This is the problem I have with the system as it stands...
Okay, Arthur perceives Charlie and Belinda talking, so I accept that his personal predispositions may affect how he perceives that situation... i.e., does he realise they are flirting, or perhaps misinterpret the situation. If Arthur realises that Belinda and Charlie are flirting, then presumably there is a ''flirting-activity'' that now suggestes to Arthur one or more possible actions and the consequences of doing or not doing those actions. It would be socially correct if these choices were mitigated by Arthurs belief structures, rather than predesigned in accordance with some external agents belief structures (the game designer). This, I believe, would be more in tune with Wittgenstein''s original ideas and certainly more realistic.
Ideally, what would be desirable is a system in which agents learn their roles in social activities based on trial and error (punishment and reward). This is indeed how humans and other animals (particularly primates which have very structured social heirarchies for expressing their activities) learn to recognise and partake in social activities. You could possibly achieve this learning by utilising the emotions of shame, pride, embarassment, etc., as a utility/reward function in a reinforcement learning scenario.
Anyway, just my brief thoughts on the notion of social activities, so take them with a grain of salt!
Cheers,
Timkin
quote:Original post by MikeD
Arthur has to notice the flirting himself to act on it, the activities certainly won''t tell him.
indeed... in reality this can be seen in situations where people manage to get away with unfaithfulness for years at a time - if they''re not in a position to see it themselves or simply miss the signs then they won''t know...
as for them being in a permanently "married to" activity, the same still applies - arthurs thoughts on the flirtation (assuming he notices it) are specific to him as they are to all of the agents - arthur may actually like the idea of her flirting with charlie and it may be charlie who sees it as a problem (perhaps a past experience has caused him to be wary of married women
)...quote:Original post by Timkin
It would be socially correct if these choices were mitigated by Arthurs belief structures, rather than predesigned in accordance with some external agents belief structures (the game designer).
that''s exactly how i understood it would work... arthur would make his decisions based on his own ideals rather than on a global set - this fits precisely with the idea that the agents are self-contained and are given no guidance by the activities they are undertaking (why should flirting always reduce an agent''s prestige?) nor by anything else... arthur''s decisions should be guided by similar experiences in the past - if he''s never been in a similar situation or never witnessed a similar situation then his decision should be essentially random (i.e. no pre-determined starting beliefs for him - unless these, themselves, are initially random)...
Timkin, you object to the form of future activities caused by the flirting being formed by the game designer. Instead you want a reward punishment system for agents to learn their own reactions. Who would design this system? Wouldn''t it suffer from the same designer-centric world view and lead to the same problems whether it occured from designed learning or from designed rules?
quote:Original post by paulus_maximus
that's exactly how i understood it would work... arthur would make his decisions based on his own ideals rather than on a global set - this fits precisely with the idea that the agents are self-contained and are given no guidance by the activities they are undertaking
Except that, as far as I can tell from the information presented, once Arthur perceives that the flirting is occuring, the flirting activity makes a recommendation of action to him. If indeed this recommendation depends on Arthurs personal beliefs, then that's fine. My question will have been answered and I believe in that situation this implementation of Wittgenstein is fairly faithful (and would be well worth the look!
If however this is not the case, then this system will lack the depth of variation found among other cultures/species with regards to social activities.
quote:Original post by MikeD
Timkin, you object to the form of future activities caused by the flirting being formed by the game designer.
It's not that I object... it's just that I think the system will lack depth and wont have the same feel as real social activities among humans. I do agree though that this implementation is at least a first step on the road to creating meaningful interactions between NPCs and between PCs and NPCs.
quote:Original post by MikeD
Instead you want a reward punishment system for agents to learn their own reactions. Who would design this system? Wouldn't it suffer from the same designer-centric world view and lead to the same problems whether it occured from designed learning or from designed rules?
Not necessarily. How does Arthur formulate the belief that allowing his wife to flirt with other men is a good thing? It gets down to Arthur's experiences. Let's assume that once upon a time Arthur came home to find his wife in bed with another man. Arthur killed the other man and went to gaol for a while. Perhaps he had a good lawyer and he only spent a few years in gaol. Arthur got out of gaol a rehabilitated man. He had learned that killing gets you punished. Arthur now sees his new wife, Belinda, flirting with Charlie. Realising that killing Charlie is not a viable option, because it brings a punishment, Arthur decides that it is okay to let Belinda flirt. He decides that he would rather leave her instead. This of course brings conflicting rewards and punishments (the reward of being empowered and strong along with the punishment of being alone and not getting any)! Perhaps next time Arthur will decide to allow his wife to flirt and may even join in!
Alternatively, what if Arthur's experiences in gaol did not reform him. When he sees Belinda flirting with Charlie, he gets REALLY angry and kills them both, this time going to gaol for life! This is an alternative action based on prior beliefs; that flirting is a form of betrayal and betrayal should be punished.
As I said above, if the 'flirting activity' were to offer Arthur actions based on Arthur's beliefs, then there isn't an issue here... merely a lack of information in the given articles to draw this conclusion. The learning system is not necessary, although it would be the system closer to human experience and thus a lot more interesting!
Please don't get me wrong Mike, I'm not putting you, Richard or LHS down for the system that has been designed... merely offering some thoughts on the matter of social activities.
Cheers,
Timkin
[edited by - Timkin on September 5, 2002 8:49:21 PM]
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