"Let's save resources!": A dynamic, collaborative AI for a multiplayer environmental awareness game

In this paper we present a collaborative artificial intelligence (AI) module for a turn-based, multiplayer, environmental awareness game. The game is a version of the EnerCities serious game, modified in the context of a European-Union project to support sequential plays of an emphatic robotic tutor interacting with two human players in a social and pedagogical manner. For that purpose, we created an AI module capable of informing the game-playing and pedagogical decision-making of the robotic tutor. Specifically, the module includes an action planner capable of, together with a game simulator, perform forward-planning according to player preferences and current game values. Such predicted values are also used as an alert system to inform the other players of near consequences of current behaviors and advise alternative, sustainable courses of action in the game. The module also incorporates a social component that continuously models the game preferences of each player and automatically adjusts the tutor’s strategy so to follow the group’s “action tendency”. The proposed AI module is therefore used to inform about important aspects of the game state and also the human players actions. In this paper we overview the properties and complexity of this collaborative version of the game and detail the AI module and its components. We also report on the successes of using the proposed module for controlling the behavior of a robotic tutor in several experimental studies, including the interaction with children playing collaborative EnerCities.