Kyle Mitchell

Kyle Mitchell is a PhD candidate in the Dept. of Computer Science and the Social Intelligence and Narrative in Games (SING) Lab, run by Prof. Joshua McCoy. His core research areas currently include: game agent believability, AI-driven game design, and heterogeneous systems design/implementation. Central to his current work is a testbed virtual world to realize new ideas. For example, Oops! All Bards (O!AB) is a 3D roleplaying game in which the player can inhabit the persona of a bard living in a medieval fantasy world currently under siege by a mysterious and maleficent entity. Ongoing research in O!AB includes the design and implementation of an AI system called "victoria in victus," or Viv. Viv will create more believable and dynamic AI characters for video games by combining the strengths of logical reasoning and reactive behavior. Kyle's research involves defeasible logic programming (DELP) to represent a character's knowledge and beliefs, allowing them to reason about incomplete information and adapt to changing circumstances. This knowledge drives a reactive planning system (using A Behavior Language, or ABL) that controls the character's actions in a Unity-based game environment, resulting in AI that feels less scripted and more intelligent.