[Apology for cross-postings]

*************************************************************************************************

Angry Birds AI Competition

IJCAI is pleased to host AIBIRDS 2015, the Angry Birds Artificial
Intelligence Competition (aibirds.org).

The goal of the competition is to build AI agents that can play the
popular game Angry Birds better than the best human players. This is
surprisingly difficult as the outcome of each action is unknown in
advance and the number of possible actions is infinite. Physics-based
simulation games such as Angry Birds use a simulator that has complete
knowledge of the current game state and each action can be perfectly
and realistically simulated. However, players only have visual
information available and must select a good action based on
estimating the outcomes. This is very similar to the way humans
interact with the physical world and what successful AI systems should
be capable of doing too. The Angry Birds AI competition offers the
possibility to develop these capabilities in a  simplified and
controlled environment.

Participants are provided with a sample agent that they can improve
using methods developed in AI areas such as computer vision, machine
learning, knowledge representation and reasoning, heuristic search,
and reasoning under uncertainty.

In addition to the standard track, the 2015 competition features a new
competitive track where two agents play the same game level using
alternating shots. Agents make concealed offers for the right of the
first shot and the agent that solves a level gets all the points. This
should offer an interesting testbed for multi-agent and game theory
research.

AIBIRDS 2015 will be held over multiple days during the main conference.
The first day is the qualification round accompanied by paper
presentations. The second day is the finals day where the winner will
be determined. The last day features the Human vs Machine Challenge
where everyone is invited to challenge the best AI agents and where we
will answer whether humans are still better than AI at playing Angry
Birds.

The competition is open to all registered teams who submit a working
Angry Birds game playing agent to the organisers by July 12. This
agent will be used for testing compatibility with the competition
framework. Participants can still modify their agent after July 12,
but no further compatibility tests will be made. Remote participation
is possible, but attendance is encouraged. Each team must submit a one
page description of the methods and strategies used by the agent. This
information will not be disclosed to other competitors before the
competition.
There will also be a limited opportunity to present original
scientific work on all aspects of developing an Angry Birds AI agent.
The deadline for submitting full or short papers is July 1.

All participating teams need to register for the competition, one
registration per team. Registration will open on March 1, 2015. Early
registration deadline is May 31.
For more detailed information on the competition, including Call for
Participation and Call for Papers, please refer to aibirds.org.

Organisers: Jochen Renz, XiaoYu (Gary) Ge, Peng Zhang, Stephen Gould
(Australian National University).
Contact: [log in to unmask]


Find IJCAI-15 on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/ijcai15
Find IJCAI-15 on Weibo: http://weibo.com/5225989544
Follow IJCAI-15 on Twitter: https://twitter.com/ijcai15