arXiv subjects

Lion Schulz

Publications and source records attributed to Lion Schulz.

4 recordsLinked to original sources

arXiv2026

Fabula: Building a Narrative Storytelling Sidekick with the Writers' Community

We design and evaluate Fabula, an interactive app for fiction writers. Fabula uses detailed narrative plans informed by general narratological theory. Stories are structured hierarchically into scenes and beats that can be (re)generated and revised at script and story plan level. Using participatory AI, we critically evaluate and improve Fabula with casual and published writers, via design interviews and writing sessions with 42 experts, and large-scale internal and external testing. We interrogate our design choices: (1) whether a language model-based auto-evaluator, optimized on human experts' preferences, can improve story quality, (2) whether users want UI that exposes the detailed narrative plan alongside the story script, (3) to what extent our narratology assumptions fit localised storytelling traditions and serve screenwriters or playwrights, and (4) whether convergent iteration over the story plan supports writers' creativity. Building on critical feedback and concerns, we use Fabula as a cultural probe in adversarial design, and identify potentials for writing feedback and for interactive storytelling.

cs.HC↗

arXiv2024

Narrative Information Theory

We propose an information-theoretic framework to measure narratives, providing a formalism to understand pivotal moments, cliffhangers, and plot twists. This approach offers creatives and AI researchers tools to analyse and benchmark human- and AI-created stories. We illustrate our method in TV shows, showing its ability to quantify narrative complexity and emotional dynamics across genres. We discuss applications in media and in human-in-the-loop generative AI storytelling.

cs.MM↗

arXiv2024

$\aleph$-IPOMDP: Mitigating Deception in a Cognitive Hierarchy with Off-Policy Counterfactual Anomaly Detection

Social agents with finitely nested opponent models are vulnerable to manipulation by agents with deeper recursive capabilities. This imbalance, rooted in logic and the theory of recursive modelling frameworks, cannot be solved directly. We propose a computational framework called $\aleph$-IPOMDP, which augments the Bayesian inference of model-based RL agents with an anomaly detection algorithm and an out-of-belief policy. Our mechanism allows agents to realize that they are being deceived, even if they cannot understand how, and to deter opponents via a credible threat. We test this framework in both a mixed-motive and a zero-sum game. Our results demonstrate the $\aleph$-mechanism's effectiveness, leading to more equitable outcomes and less exploitation by more sophisticated agents. We discuss implications for AI safety, cybersecurity, cognitive science, and psychiatry.

cs.MA↗

arXiv2023

Playing repeated games with Large Language Models

LLMs are increasingly used in applications where they interact with humans and other agents. We propose to use behavioural game theory to study LLM's cooperation and coordination behaviour. We let different LLMs play finitely repeated $2\times2$ games with each other, with human-like strategies, and actual human players. Our results show that LLMs perform particularly well at self-interested games like the iterated Prisoner's Dilemma family. However, they behave sub-optimally in games that require coordination, like the Battle of the Sexes. We verify that these behavioural signatures are stable across robustness checks. We additionally show how GPT-4's behaviour can be modulated by providing additional information about its opponent and by using a "social chain-of-thought" (SCoT) strategy. This also leads to better scores and more successful coordination when interacting with human players. These results enrich our understanding of LLM's social behaviour and pave the way for a behavioural game theory for machines.

cs.CL↗