Behavioral Mathematics For Game Ai

by Mark,Dave

• ISBN13: 9781584506843
• ISBN10: 1584506849
• Edition: 1st
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2009-03-05
• Publisher: Cengage Learning PTR

Summary

Human behavior is never an exact science, making the design and programming of artificial intelligence that seeks to replicate human behavior difficult. Usually, the answers cannot be found in sterile algorithms that are often the focus of artificial intelligence programming. However, by analyzing why people behave the way we do, we can break down the process into increasingly smaller components. We can model many of those individual components in the language of logic and mathematics and then reassemble them into larger, more involved decision-making processes. Drawing from classical game theory, "Behavioral Mathematics for Game AI" covers both the psychological foundations of human decisions and the mathematical modeling techniques that AI designers and programmers can use to replicate them. With examples from both real life and game situations, you'll explore topics such as utility, the fallacy of rational behavior, and the inconsistencies and contradictions that human behavior often exhibits. You'll examine various ways of using statistics, formulas, and algorithms to create believable simulations and to model these dynamic, realistic, and interesting behaviors in video games. Finally, you'll be introduced to a number of tools you can use in conjunction with standard AI algorithms to make it easier to utilize the mathematical models. Review: Game developers often use little tricks to sprinkle magic decision-making abilities throughout their AI code, without necessarily understanding the fundamentals of how it works. Dave not only documents this process on paper, but he goes into the theoretical background behind these techniques. For anyone wishing to know more about the math behind common game behaviors, this is the ideal textbook on the subject. —Alex J. Champandard Editor & consultant, AiGameDev.com

Table of Contents

Why Behavioral Mathematics

Decision Theory

Mathematical Modeling

Probability Math for Decisions

Modeling Individual Choice

Modeling Simulations

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.