Creating a Story-Telling Universe

Abstract

Extended story generation, such as the creation of soap opera stories, is a difficult and interesting problem for Artificial Intelligence. We present here the first phase of the development of a program, UNIVERSE, to tell such stories. In particular, we introduce a method for creating universes of characters appropriate for extended story generation. This method concentrates on the need to keep story-telling universes consistent and coherent. We also describe the information that must be maintained for characters and interpersonal relations, and the use of stereotypical information about people to help motivate trait values. Finally, we present an example of the kind of characters UNIVERSE generates.