IJCAI 2020 Symposium on AI in Angry Birds - Call for Papers

July 11-17, 2020, Yokohama, Japan.

While Angry Birds is a simple game that can be easily understood and played by almost anyone, building a computer program that can play the game as well as humans is a very challenging task. This is partly due to the very large action space of the game -- birds can be released at almost arbitrary rational angles and the tapping time seems continuous -- but also because the outcome of an action is not known in advance without actually executing or simulating it. These two points mean that brute force search and simulation do not seem to be useful for identifying successful solutions.

Instead, qualitative reasoning and machine learning techniques may be helpful in dealing with the huge search spaces, characterising the properties of objects, and overcoming the uncertainty that comes from noisy object detections or inaccurate physical models. Other AI techniques such as planning or diagnosis may be used for determining good action sequences and for analysing unexpected failures. Overall a large spectrum of AI techniques can be useful in developing a successful AI agent that can play Angry Birds at a human level. Moreover, a combination of methods and techniques from several AI sub-disciplines seems necessary.

The developed solutions could prove to be an important step towards intelligent systems that can deal with real-world situations. While Angry Birds is certainly not a real-world problem, it is more realistic than many scenarios typically studied in AI.

The IJCAI 2020 Symposium on AI in Angry Birds will be held together with the IJCAI 2020 Angry Birds AI Competition in Yokohama, Japan. The purpose of this symposium is to present original scientific work of high quality related to the problems of developing an intelligent Angry Birds playing agent. Papers related to our new Novelty Track are encouraged. Papers must clearly demonstrate, why the proposed approaches are beneficial. This could be based on the available benchmarks or on comparing with the provided sample agent. However, purely theoretical work is also welcome. Authors of submitted papers are encouraged to also submit an agent to the IJCAI 2020 Angry Birds AI Competition in order to demonstrate how well their approaches work. Further details about the competition can be found at aibirds.org.

Papers will be selected based on their originality, significance and relevance, and must be of high quality. Papers will not be made available to competing teams and will be treated confidentially. Papers will only be made available at the start of the IJCAI 2020 Angry Birds AI competition on July 11.

Accepted papers will be presented during the IJCAI 2020 Angry Birds AI competition and we will select papers for either long or short presentation. At least one author of each accepted paper must register for the AIBIRDS competition and present the paper at the Symposium.

SUBMISSION

Papers should be limited to 6 pages plus at most one additional page for references. Papers should include author names and affiliations.

Submissions should be formatted in PDF according to IJCAI guidelines and submitted by email to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Formatting guidelines and electronic templates are available on the IJCAI 2020 website: http://www.ijcai.org/authors_kit

PROCEEDINGS

Accepted papers will be published on the aibirds.org website. Authors will retain copyright and papers can be submitted elsewhere.

IMPORTANT DATES

Submission Deadline:

1 June 2020

Acceptance Notification:

11 June 2019 (Papers submitted earlier than June 1 can request earlier notification)

Camera Ready Deadline:

10 July 2020, 2pm Yokohama time

Symposium:

11-17 July 2020 (exact date tbd)

ORGANISERS: