NEXT-IM: Next-Generation Computational Intrinsic Motivation

Our motivations are the driving force of our behaviour. We often do something for a separate outcome, e.g. putting on our finest clothes to impress our friends. But we also do things for their inherent value, e.g. when reading a book for curiosity alone. Psychologists would then say that we are "intrinsically motivated", and AI researchers have successfully translated such motivations into maths and code. These "models" can turn your kid's favourite game characters into believable interaction partners that never cease to be interesting, and allow your household robot to assist in tasks that it was not programmed for. The NEXT-IM project combines insights from Computer Science and Psychology to take intrinsic motivation models to the next level: by defining them properly, by creating simulations to compare them and evaluate their ability to describe human motivation, and by developing new models that will, for instance, make your robot even better at predicting how it can help you best.