This book introduces readers to artificial intelligence (AI) through the lens of playable media and explores the impact of such software on everyday life. From video games to robotic companions to digital twins, artificial intelligence drives large sectors of the culture industry where play, media and machine learning coexist. This book illustrates how playable media contribute to our sense of self, while also harnessing our data, tightening our bonds with computation and realigning play with the demands of network logic. Author Eric Freedman examines a number of popular media forms - from the Sony AIBO robotic dog, video game developer Naughty Dog’s Uncharted and The Last of Us franchises, to Peloton’s connected fitness equipment - to lay bare the computational processes that undergird playable media, and addresses the social, cultural, technological and economic forces that continue to shape user-centered experience and design. The case studies are drawn from a number of related research fields, including science and technology studies, media studies and software studies. This book is ideal for media studies students, scholars and practitioners interested in understanding how applied artificial intelligence works in popular, public and visual culture.

Revolutionizing Communication: The Role of Artificial Intelligence explores the wide-ranging effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on how we connect and communicate, changing social interactions, relationships, and the very structure of our society. Through insightful analysis, practical examples, and knowledgeable perspectives, the book examines chatbots, virtual assistants, natural language processing, and more. It shows how these technologies have a significant impact on cultural productions, business, education, ethics, advertising, media, journalism, and interpersonal interactions. Revolutionizing Communication is a guide to comprehending the present and future of communication in the era of AI. It provides invaluable insights for professionals, academics, and everyone interested in the significant changes occurring in our digital age.

Offering an interdisciplinary approach to narrative, this book investigates storyworlds and minds in narratives across media, from literature to digital games and reality TV, from online sadomasochism to oral history databases, and from horror to hallucinations. It addresses two core questions of contemporary narrative theory, inspired by recent cognitive-scientific developments: what kind of a construction is a storyworld, and what kind of mental functioning can be embedded in it? Minds and worlds become essential facets of making sense and interpreting narratives as the book asks how story-internal minds relate to the mind external to the storyworld, that is, the mind processing the story. With essays from social scientists, literary scholars, linguists, and scholars from interactive media studies answering these topical questions, the collection brings diverse disciplines into dialogue, providing new openings for genuinely transdisciplinary narrative theory. The wide-ranging selection of materials analyzed in the book promotes knowledge on the latest forms of cultural and social meaning-making through narrative, necessary for navigating the contemporary, mediatized cultural landscape. The combination of theoretical reflection and empirical analysis makes this book an invaluable resource for scholars and advanced students in fields including literary studies, social sciences, art, media, and communication.

The definite guide to the theory, knowledge, technical expertise, and ethical considerations that define the M&S profession From traffic control to disaster management, supply chain analysis to military logistics, healthcare management to new drug discovery, modeling and simulation (M&S) has become an essential tool for solving countless real-world problems. M&S professionals are now indispensable to how things get done across virtually every aspect of modern life. This makes it all the more surprising that, until now, no effort has been made to systematically codify the core theory, knowledge, and technical expertise needed to succeed as an M&S professional. This book brings together contributions from experts at the leading edge of the modeling and simulation profession, worldwide, who share their priceless insights into issues which are fundamental to professional success and career development in this critically important field. Running as a common thread throughout the book is an emphasis on several key aspects of the profession, including the essential body of knowledge underlying the M&S profession; the technical discipline of M&S; the ethical standards that should guide professional conduct; and the economic and commercial challenges today’s M&S professionals face. • Demonstrates applications of M&S tools and techniques in a variety of fields—such as engineering, operations research, and cyber environments—with over 500 types of simulations • Highlights professional and academic aspects of the field, including preferred programming languages, professional academic and certification programs, and key international societies • Shows why M&S professionals must be fully versed in the theory, concepts, and tools needed to address the challenges of cyber environments The Profession of Modeling and Simulation is a valuable resource for M&S practitioners, developers, and researchers working in industry and government. Simulation professionals, including administrators, managers, technologists, faculty members, and scholars within the physical sciences, life sciences, and engineering fields will find it highly useful, as will students planning to pursue a career in the M&S profession. “ ...nearly three dozen experts in Modeling and Simulation (M&S) come together to make a compelling case for the recognition of M&S as a profession... Important reading for anyone seeking to elevate the standing of this vital field.” Alfred (Al) Grasso, President & CEO, The MITRE Corporation Andreas Tolk, PhD, is Technology Integrator for the Modeling, Simulation, Experimentation, and Analytics Division of The MITRE Corporation, an adjunct professor in the Department of Engineering Management and Systems Engineering and the Department for Modeling, Simulation, and Visualization Engineering at Old Dominion University, and an SCS fellow. Tuncer Ören, PhD, is Professor Emeritus of Computer Science at the University of Ottawa. He is an SCS fellow and an inductee to SCS Modeling and Simulation Hall of Fame. His research interests include advancing methodologies, ethics, body of knowledge, and terminology of modeling and simulation.

This book is an overview of the ongoing revolution in tabletop gaming design and culture, which exploded to unprecedented levels of vitality in the 21st century, leading to new ways of creating, marketing, and experiencing a game. Designers have become superstars, publishers have improved quality control, and the community of players is expanding. Most importantly, new and old players have started engaging with the games in a more meaningful way. The book explores the reasons for these changes. It describes how games have begun to keep players engaged until the end. It analyzes the ways in which traditional mechanics have been reimagined to give them more variety and complexity, and reviews the unprecedented mechanics found and perfected. Very interesting is the exploration of how games have performed novel tasks such as reducing conflict, fostering cooperation, creating aesthetic experiences, and telling stories. The book is aimed at scholars, dedicated and aspiring fans, and game designers who want to expand their toolbox with the most up-to-date innovations in the profession.

From the complex city-planning game SimCity to the virtual therapist Eliza: how computational processes open possibilities for understanding and creating digital media. What matters in understanding digital media? Is looking at the external appearance and audience experience of software enough—or should we look further? In Expressive Processing, Noah Wardrip-Fruin argues that understanding what goes on beneath the surface, the computational processes that make digital media function, is essential. Wardrip-Fruin looks at “expressive processing” by examining specific works of digital media ranging from the simulated therapist Eliza to the complex city-planning game SimCity. Digital media, he contends, offer particularly intelligible examples of things we need to understand about software in general; if we understand, for instance, the capabilities and histories of artificial intelligence techniques in the context of a computer game, we can use that understanding to judge the use of similar techniques in such higher-stakes social contexts as surveillance.

An argument that great expressive power of computational media arises from the construction of phantasms—blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination. In Phantasmal Media, D. Fox Harrell considers the expressive power of computational media. He argues, forcefully and persuasively, that the great expressive potential of computational media comes from the ability to construct and reveal phantasms—blends of cultural ideas and sensory imagination. These ubiquitous and often-unseen phantasms—cognitive phenomena that include sense of self, metaphors, social categories, narrative, and poetic thinking—influence almost all our everyday experiences. Harrell offers an approach for understanding and designing computational systems that have the power to evoke these phantasms, paying special attention to the exposure of oppressive phantasms and the creation of empowering ones. He argues for the importance of cultural content, diverse worldviews, and social values in computing. The expressive power of phantasms is not purely aesthetic, he contends; phantasmal media can express and construct the types of meaning central to the human condition. Harrell discusses, among other topics, the phantasm as an orienting perspective for developers; expressive epistemologies, or data structures based on subjective human worldviews; morphic semiotics (building on the computer scientist Joseph Goguen's theory of algebraic semiotics); cultural phantasms that influence consensus and reveal other perspectives; computing systems based on cultural models; interaction and expression; and the ways that real-world information is mapped onto, and instantiated by, computational data structures. The concept of phantasmal media, Harrell argues, offers new possibilities for using the computer to understand and improve the human condition through the human capacity to imagine.