September 6, 2003

Waiting for Spring?

by Andrew Stern · , 9:19 am

Reading Nick’s summary of the history of AI and narrative he’s writing for the Routledge Encyclopedia of Narrative Theory, it stands out how few notable research milestones in AI and narrative have occurred over the last *40* years, since ELIZA first appeared…! We need to pick up the pace here, folks!

Is it because it’s difficult to get funding for this kind of research? Surely it can’t be for lack of interest on the part of researchers. Maybe narrative intelligence research has never quite recovered from the AI winter of the 1980’s? Or, probably more likely, “narrative” is such an huge, umbrella-like topic that actually all sorts of already-underway AI research projects, e.g., Cyc, the Shruti project (mentioned by William in an earlier comment), etc., are effectively laying the needed groundwork for more explicit narrative intelligence research in the future?

(Note: I try to maintain a list of links to past and current narrative intelligence research projects, among other things, but I’m sure the list is missing some important links… feel free to suggest what needs to be added, thanks.)

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