Rafael Pérez y Pérez: MEXICA as a tool for the reflection on ideas - Symbolic AI as method
What can symbolic AI teach us about narratives? In this talk, Rafael Pérez y Pérez uses MEXICA, a narrative generator he has developed, to demonstrate how symbolic computational models contribute to testing hypotheses about narrative processes.
Main content
MEXICA is an AI story generator by Rafael Pérez y Pérez, inspired by Aztec mythology. It uses a cognitive model of engagement-reflection, simulating human-like creative processes. MEXICA balances emotional tension and narrative coherence, employing case-based reasoning, and is a foundational project in computational creativity and culturally rich narrative generation. MEXICA uses symbolic AI rather than the generative AI in large language models.
This talk is open to students and researchers interested in AI, digital narratives, and the application of symbolic models in understanding creative processes.
About the talk "MEXICA as a tool for the reflection on ideas"
Pérez y Pérez will start his talk with a definition of AI and then explain the main differences between generative AI and symbolic AI. Next, he will use MEXICA, his narrative generator system, to illustrate how symbolic computational models are useful to test and expand hypotheses about how the narrative generation process work. Because these models provide a framework to try different theoretical scenarios, they are great tools for the reflection on ideas. To illustrate their utility, he will show products that MEXICA generates, for example, text narratives, visual narratives, collaborative narratives. He will also mention the capacity of the system to evaluate its own work and collaborate with human artists. The talk will conclude with some reflections on the importance of the study and development of symbolic models for the generation of narratives, and explain why generative models cannot replace these functions.
Rafael Perez y Perez
Rafael Pérez y Pérez is a Research Professor at Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana at Cuajimalpa, México City, and a Professor II at the Center for Digital Narrative at the University of Bergen. In 2006 he founded the Interdisciplinary Group on Computational Creativity, which aims to gather together a group of researchers and students interested in computational creativity. They have developed programs for plot generation, interior design, visual narratives, creative problem solving, and so on. This group organizes every year the Mexican International Colloquium on Computational Creativity. He was the chair (2014-2015, 2015-2019) of the Association for Computational Creativity. Professor Pérez y Pérez is member of the National System of Researchers in México (SNI).
