Operationalizing Creative Theories

Hypothetical reasoning is one of the best interdisciplinary tools we have for growing human knowledge, as it exercises imagination and empathy while yielding powerful abstractions. Operationalizing hypothetical reasoning (via programming languages) can therefore be used fruitfully in creative, imaginative activities. Conversely, pre-digital techniques for adding spontaneity and serendipity into creative work, based on collaborative play, have inspired digital interfaces and might be fruitfully extended to programming languages. I will illustrate how hypothetical reasoning and collaborative play pair well together as guiding principles, and using them, I will describe a unified design space of computational artifacts for programming, proving, storytelling, playing, and generating computational artifacts.

Transcript

1. Operationalizing Creative Theories Chris Martens UC Santa Cruz Expressive Intelligence Studio OBT 2016 1
5. 5 Confluence
6. confluence of programming abstractions and interactive expression 6
7. Roadmap ! Imaginative Play Collaborative Play Generative Methods Tool Design 7
8. Roadmap ! Imaginative Play Collaborative Play Generative Methods Tool Design 8
9. “Imaginative play: [children] must practice pretending to be someone else, in another place. Making up character, plot, and dialogue, for the stories they invent. They are, in truth, inventing abstract thinking.” Vivian Gussin Paley, early education researcher: 9
11. Hypothetical Reasoning 11
12. Hypothetical Reasoning wizards are real, wizards can cast spells, “accio” is a spell that summons an object, … ! 12
13. magic circles Adams & Rollings 2009 13
14. other “magic circles:” ! metacircular interpreters self-similarity & fractals recursion in general 14
15. “magic” in digital games 15
16. 16 inventory systems
17. 17 verb/noun systems
18. emergent behavior and surprise ! a response for every conjuring of the imagination ! game worlds in conversation with their players 18
20. 20 Emergent Behavior
21. 21 Simulationist Worlds e.g.: glass can break into shards rope is cuttable shards are sharp => glass can be broken to cut the rope
22. 22 Simulationist Worlds
23. 23 Inform 7
24. Roadmap ! Imaginative Play Collaborative Play Generative Methods Tool Design 24
25. 25 Tabletop RPGs
26. Surrealist games 26
27. 27 Like programming languages, collaborative games are constrained affordances whose use results in a designed artifact.
28. Chooser: decide among available rules Interpreter: what does the output mean? Interpreter: what do the rules mean? Co-creator: contribute rules 28 The Role of the Human
29. Nomic [Peter Suber, 1982] 29 Game with self-modifying rules
30. 30 Blurring the lines between design tool and designed artifact
31. Roadmap ! Imaginative Play Collaborative Play Generative Methods Tool Design 31
32. 32 AKA Procedural Content Generation (PCG)
33. Spatial level structure Character attributes NPC Dialogue Items Aesthetic components (visuals, music) Narrative* Game Rules* 33 What kinds of things can we generate?
34. Level Structure: Spelunky 34
35. Aesthetics: Secret Habitat 35
36. Dialogue: Prom Week 36
37. DESIGN FOR RECOMBINATION ! [Gillian Smith, “An Analogue History of PCG”] 37
38. Oulipo 38
41. Lego 41
42. Compositionality 42
43. Combining Hypotheticals 43
44. Compositionality 44 Meaning Combination function
45. Compositionality 45 With [[-]] typing, value, etc.
46. production grammars & rewrite systems 46
47. production grammars & rewrite systems 47
48. Context Freeness is a form of compositionality 48
49. 49 - Given a combined thing, its meaning can be determined by its parts ! - Given an atomic thing, its meaning can be understood independently of what it can be combined with Two Views of Compositionality
50. for any new domain we want to generate, the question becomes: ! what are the Lego pieces? how do they compose? 50
51. Narrative 51
52. Vladimir Propp: Morhpology of the Folktale 52
53. 53 Are stories compositional? + = ?
55. 55 “18 Cadence” by Aaron Reed
56. 56 A refinement of compositionality If A’s interface I(A) matches I(B), then I(A * B) is defined. e.g.: function composition
57. 57 E.g. A hates B A has weapon A murders B B dead B hates A A insults B B hates A A hates B
58. 58 E.g. A hates B A has weapon A murders B B dead B hates A A insults B B hates A A hates B
59. B hates A 59 A hates B A has weapon B dead B hates A A hates B A murders B A insults B
60. 60 symmetric monoidal categories
62. 62 analogies for PCG
63. 63 Can an automated system come up with coherent recipes? Or coherent programs in a given PL? (program synthesis)
64. Mixed-initiative design: Sentient Sketchbook 64
65. Roadmap ! Imaginative Play Collaborative Play Generative Methods Tool Design 65
66. Tools that lots of people use are more fun when they’re compositional 66
67. Twine 67
68. Tools that exist: Tracery 68 http://www.crystalcodepalace.com/traceryTut.html
69. Tools that exist: Tracery 69
70. 70 6 6¶ 6R6¶  U6R6¶    Q  /RJLF3URJUDP LQLWLDOVWDWH Ceptre
71. …and compositional tools are more fun when other people can use them 71
72. programming a blank canvas 72
73. compiler 73 structure Foo = struct ! fun fact 0 = 1 | fact n = n * fact (n-1) ! end REPL
74. compiler 74 REPL fun fact 0 = 1 | fact n = n * fact (n-1) fact : nat -> nat fun mapfact l = map fact l
75. Agda emacs mode; interactive theorem provers 75 mixed-initiative compositional programming?
76. 76 programming in conversation with a system
77. CODA 77
78. <3 OBT <3 78
79. <3 OBT <3 2012 79
80. <3 OBT <3 2012 2014 80
81. Different Games : GDC :: OBT : POPL 81
82. DIFFERENT GAMES are the FUTURE OF GAMES - Clara Fernandez-Vara,
 Different Games 2013 82
83. OBT PL RESEARCH is the FUTURE OF PL RESEARCH 83
84. Chris Martens context.adventure@gmail.com @chrisamaphone http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~cmartens 84 THANKS!
85. Extra Slides 85
86. 86 top-down approaches: evolutionary, constraint, planning (methods of search)
87. 87 PCG with ASP
88. Simulationist story generation: 88 Describe what characters are in the world & their relationships to one another ! Describe what story events can do to change those relationships ! Describe a termination condition ! Press play
89. storyteller 89
90. vi hart on structure: ! "we understand the world and each other through the patterns we know, but it's also important to realize the structure is there, realize how invented it all is. ! “that frees you to build new, more beautiful structures that communicate things there were no words for before, even if that new word might not be understood." 90
91. magic circles? Pfenning & Davies 2000 91