Prof Simon Colton
Professor of Computational Creativity, Games and Artificial Intelligence
School of Electronic Engineering and Computer Science
Queen Mary University of London
Queen Mary University of London
Research
Computational Creativity, AI, Game Design, Computer Art, Automated Program Synthesis
Interests
I have 25+ years of experience in AI, including generative technologies, such as deep learning, evolutionary approaches and procedural content generation.Publications
Publications of specific relevance to the Centre for Multimodal AI2024
Bhandari K and Colton S (2024). Motifs, Phrases, and Beyond: The Modelling of
Structure in Symbolic Music Generation., Editors: Johnson C, Rebelo S and Santos I. Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design – 13th International Conference, EvoMUSART 2024 Aberystwyth, Wales, United Kingdom 3 Apr 2024 - 5 Apr 2024. 03-04-2024
2023
Banar B, Bryan-Kinns N and Colton S (2023). A Tool for Generating Controllable Variations of Musical Themes Using Variational Autoencoders with Latent Space Regularisation. 26-06-2023
Banar B and Colton S (2023). Autoregressive Self-Evaluation: A Case Study of Music Generation Using Large Language Models. 2023 IEEE Conference on Artificial Intelligence (CAI). 06-06-2023
Colton S and Banar B (2023). Automatically Adding to Artistic Cultures. Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design 50-66. 01-01-2023
Colton S and Cardinale S (2023). Extending Generative Neo-Riemannian Theory for Event-Based Soundtrack Production. Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design 67-83. 01-01-2023
2022
Banar B and Colton S (2022). Connecting Audio and Graphic Score using Self-supervised Representation Learning - A Case Study with György Ligeti's Artikulation. International Conference on Computational Creativity 2022. 27-06-2022
Cardinale S and Colton S (2022). Neo-Riemannian Theory for Generative Film and Videogame Music. International Conference on Computational Creativity 27 Jun 2022 - 1 Jul 2022. 27-06-2022
Banar B and Colton S (2022). Identifying Critical Decision Points in Musical Compositions using Machine Learning. 2022 IEEE 24th International Workshop on Multimedia Signal Processing (MMSP). 28-01-2022
Banar B and Colton S (2022). A Systematic Evaluation of GPT-2-Based Music Generation. Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design 19-35. 01-01-2022
Apperly I, Bundy A, Cohn A, Colton S, Cussens J, D'Avila Garcez A, Hahn U, Jamnik M, Jay C, Mareschal D, Sammut C, Schmid U, Seed A, Stahl BC, Steedman M and Tamaddoni-Nezhad A (2022). Preface. CEUR Workshop Proceedings vol. 3227 01-01-2022
2021
Hagg A, Berns S, Asteroth A, Colton S and Bäck T (2021). Expressivity of parameterized and data-driven representations in quality diversity search. Proceedings of the Genetic and Evolutionary Computation Conference. 26-06-2021
Cook M, Gow J, Smith G and Colton S (2021). Danesh: Interactive Tools for Understanding Procedural Content Generators. IEEE Transactions on Games, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 14 (3), 329-338. 07-05-2021
Colton S, Berns S and Ferrer BP (2021). First experiments in the automatic generation of pseudo-profound pseudo-bullshit image titles. 01-01-2021
Colton S, Smith A, Berns S, Murdock R and Cook M (2021). Generative Search Engines: Initial Experiments. 01-01-2021
Berns S, Broad T, Guckelsberger C and Colton S (2021). Automating Generative Deep Learning for Artistic Purposes: Challenges and Opportunities. 01-01-2021
Broad T, Berns S, Colton S and Grierson M (2021). Active Divergence with Generative Deep Learning - A Survey and Taxonomy. 01-01-2021
2020
Colton S, McCormack J, Berns S, Petrovskaya E and Cook M (2020). Adapting and Enhancing Evolutionary Art for Casual Creation. 01-01-2020
Young J and Colton S (2020). Controlling Self-organization in Generative Creative Systems. Artificial Intelligence in Music, Sound, Art and Design 194-209. 01-01-2020
Colton S (2020). Possibilities and Limitations for AI: What Can’t Machines Do? Work in the Future 109-122. 01-01-2020
2019
Martin AR and Colton S (2019). Towards Liveness in Game Development. 2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). 23-08-2019
Cook M, Colton S, Gow J and Smith G (2019). General Analytical Techniques For Parameter-Based Procedural Content Generators. 2019 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG). 23-08-2019
(2019). Guest Editorial Special Issue on AI-Based and AI-Assisted Game Design. IEEE Transactions on Games, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 11 (1), 1-4. 01-03-2019
Colton S, Pease A, Cook M and Chen C (2019). The HR3 system for automated code generation in creative settings. 01-01-2019
Cook M, Colton S, Pease A and Llano MT (2019). Framing in computational creativity - A survey and taxonomy. 01-01-2019
Pease A, Colton S, Warburton C, Nathanail A, Preda I, Arnold D, Winterstein D and Cook M (2019). The importance of applying computational creativity to scientific and mathematical domains. 01-01-2019
Singh D, Rajcic N, Colton S and McCormack J (2019). Camera Obscurer: Generative Art for Design Inspiration. 01-01-2019
2018
Cook M, Colton S and Raad A (2018). Inferring Design Constraints From Game Ruleset Analysis. 2018 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG). 17-08-2018
Nelson MJ, Gaudl SE, Colton S and Deterding S (2018). Curious users of casual creators. Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games. 07-08-2018
Gaudl SE, Nelson MJ, Colton S, Saunders R, Powley EJ, Pérez Ferrer B, Ivey P and Cook M (2018). Rapid game jams with fluidic games: A user study & design methodology. Entertainment Computing vol. 27, 1-9. 08-03-2018
Colton S, Pease A and Saunders R (2018). Issues of authenticity in autonomously creative systems. 01-01-2018
Cook M and Colton S (2018). Neighbouring communities: Interaction, lessons and opportunities. 01-01-2018
Colton S, Powley EJ and Cook M (2018). Investigating and automating the creative act of software engineering. 01-01-2018
Cook M and Colton S (2018). Redesigning computationally creative systems for continuous creation. 01-01-2018
Colton S, Nelson MJ, Powley EJ, Gaudl Rob Saunders SE, Ferrer BP, Ivey P and Cook M (2018). A parameter-space design methodology for casual creators. 01-01-2018
Ireland A, Llano MT and Colton S (2018). The Use of Automated Theory Formation in Support of Hazard Analysis. 01-01-2018
2017
Guckelsberger C, Salge C and Colton S (2017). Addressing the “Why?” in computational creativity: A non-anthropocentric, minimal model of intentional creative agency. 01-01-2017
Powley EJ, Nelson MJ, Gaudl SE, Colton S, Pérez Ferrer B, Saunders R, Ivey P and Cook M (2017). Wevva: Democratising game design. 01-01-2017
Nelson MJ, Gaudl SE, Colton S, Powley EJ, Ferrer BP, Saunders R, Ivey P and Cook M (2017). Fluidic games in cultural contexts. 01-01-2017
Gaudl SE, Nelson MJ, Colton S, Saunders R, Powley EJ, Ivey P, Ferrer BP and Cook M (2017). Exploring novel game spaces with fluidic games. 01-01-2017
Nelson MJ, Colton S, Powley EJ, Gaudl SE, Ivey P, Saunders R, Ferrer BP and Cook M (2017). Mixed-initiative approaches to on-device mobile game design. 01-01-2017
2016
Cook M, Colton S and Gow J (2016). The ANGELINA Videogame Design System—Part II. IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games vol. 9 (3), 254-266. 28-03-2016
Cook M, Colton S and Gow J (2016). The ANGELINA Videogame Design SystemPart I. IEEE Transactions on Games, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 9 (2), 192-203. 09-03-2016
Llano MT, Colton S, Hepworth R and Gow J (2016). Automated Fictional Ideation via Knowledge Base Manipulation. Cognitive Computation vol. 8 (2), 153-174. 11-01-2016
Guckelsberger C, Salge C and Colton S (2016). Intrinsically Motivated General Companion NPCs via Coupled Empowerment Maximisation. 2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG). 01-01-2016
Cook M, Gow J and Colton S (2016). Towards the Automatic Optimisation of Procedural Content Generators. 2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG). 01-01-2016
Llano MT, Guckelsberger C, Hepworth R, Gow J, Corneli J and Colton S (2016). What if a fish got drunk? Exploring the plausibility of machine-generated fictions. 01-01-2016
Guckelsberger C, Salge C, Saunders R and Colton S (2016). Supportive and antagonistic behaviour in distributed computational creativity via coupled empowerment maximisation. 01-01-2016
Charnley J, Colton S, Llano MT and Corneli J (2016). The Flowr online platform: Automated programming and computational creativity as a service. 01-01-2016
Powley EJ, Colton S, Gaudl S, Saunders R and Nelson MJ (2016). Semi-Automated Level Design via Auto-Playtesting for Handheld Casual Game Creation. 2016 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG). 01-01-2016
Colton S, Llano MT, Hepworth R, Charnley J, Gale CV, Baron A, Pachet F, Roy P, Gervás P, Collins N, Sturm B, Weyde T, Wolff D and Lloyd JR (2016). The beyond the Fence musical and computer says show documentary. 01-01-2016
Grov G, Ireland A, Llano MT, Kovacs P, Colton S and Gow J (2016). Semi-Automated Design Space Exploration for Formal Modelling. 01-01-2016
2015
Corneli J, Jordanous A, Shepperd R, Llano MT, Misztal J, Colton S and Guckelsberger C (2015). Computational poetry workshop: Making sense of work in progress. 01-01-2015
Colton S, Halskov J, Ventura D, Gouldstone I, Cook M and Pérez-Ferrer B (2015). The painting fool sees! New projects with the automated painter. 01-01-2015
2014
Browne C, Colton S, Cook M, Gow J and Baumgarten R (2014). Toward the Adaptive Generation of Bespoke Game Content. Handbook of Digital Games 17-61. 07-04-2014
Llano MT, Cook M, Guckelsberger C, Colton S and Hepworth R (2014). Towards the automatic generation of fictional ideas for games. 01-01-2014
Schorlemmer M, Smaill A, Kühnberger KU, Kutz O, Colton S, Cambouropoulos E and Pease A (2014). Coinvent: Towards a computational concept invention theory. 01-01-2014
Charnley J, Colton S and Llano MT (2014). The Flowr framework: Automated flowchart construction, optimisation and alteration for creative systems. 01-01-2014
Colton S, Pease A, Corneli J, Cook M and Llano T (2014). Assessing progress in building autonomously creative systems. 01-01-2014
Cook M and Colton S (2014). Ludus ex machina: Building a 3D game designer that competes alongside humans. 01-01-2014
Colton S and Ventura D (2014). You can’t know my mind: A festival of computational creativity. 01-01-2014
Llano MT, Hepworth R, Colton S, Gow J, Charnley J, Lavrač N, Žnidaršič M, Perovšek M, Granroth-Wilding M and Clark S (2014). Baseline methods for automated fictional ideation. 01-01-2014
Cook M and Colton S (2014). A rogue dream: Automatically generating meaningful content for games. 01-01-2014
Colton S, Cook M, Hepworth R and Pease A (2014). On acid drops and teardrops: Observer issues in computational creativity. 01-01-2014
Colton S, Ramezani R and Llano MT (2014). The HR3 discovery system: Design decisions and implementation details. 01-01-2014
Llano MT, Hepworth R, Colton S, Charnley J and Gow J (2014). Automating fictional ideation using conceptnet. 01-01-2014
2013
Pease A, Smaill A, Colton S and Lee J (2013). Bridging the Gap Between Argumentation Theory and the Philosophy of Mathematics. The Argument of Mathematics 309-338. 01-01-2013
Pease A, Colton S, Ramezani R, Charnley J and Reed K (2013). A discussion on serendipity in creative systems. 01-01-2013
Cavallo F, Pease A, Gow J and Colton S (2013). Using theory formation techniques for the invention of fictional concepts. 01-01-2013
Cook M and Colton S (2013). From mechanics to meaning and back again: Exploring techniques for the contextualisation of code. 01-01-2013
Cook M, Colton S and Gow J (2013). Nobody's a critic: On the evaluation of creative code generators - A case study in videogame design. 01-01-2013
Perovšek M, Cestnik B, Urbančič T, Colton S and Lavrač N (2013). Towards Narrative Ideation via Cross-Context Link Discovery Using Banded Matrices. 01-01-2013
Cook M, Colton S, Raad A and Gow J (2013). Mechanic Miner: Reflection-Driven Game Mechanic Discovery and Level Design. 01-01-2013
2012
Cook M, Colton S and Pease A (2012). Aesthetic considerations for automated platformer design. 01-12-2012
Gow J, Colton S, Cairns P and Miller P (2012). Mining rules from player experience and activity data. 01-12-2012
Browne C and Colton S (2012). Computational Creativity in a Closed Game System. 2012 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG). 01-09-2012
Browne C, Yannakakis GN and Colton S (2012). Guest Editorial: Special Issue on Computational Aesthetics in Games. IEEE Transactions on Games, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 4 (3), 149-151. 01-09-2012
Gow J, Baumgarten R, Cairns P, Colton S and Miller P (2012). Unsupervised Modeling of Player Style with LDA. IEEE Transactions on Games, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 4 (3), 152-166. 16-08-2012
Browne CB, Powley E, Whitehouse D, Lucas SM, Cowling PI, Rohlfshagen P, Tavener S, Perez D, Samothrakis S and Colton S (2012). A Survey of Monte Carlo Tree Search Methods. IEEE Transactions on Games, Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) vol. 4 (1), 1-43. 03-02-2012
Charnley J, Pease A and Colton S (2012). On the notion of framing in computational creativity. 01-01-2012
Colton S (2012). The Painting Fool: Stories from Building an Automated Painter. Computers and Creativity 3-38. 01-01-2012
Cook M, Colton S and Gow J (2012). Initial Results from Co-operative Co-evolution for Automated Platformer Design. 01-01-2012
2011
Pease A and Colton S (2011). Computational creativity theory: Inspirations behind the face and the IDEA models. 01-12-2011
Colton S, Charnley J and Pease A (2011). Computational creativity theory: The FACE and IDEA descriptive models. 01-12-2011
Pease A and Colton S (2011). On impact and evaluation in computational creativity: A discussion of the Turing test and an alternative proposal. 01-12-2011
Cook M and Colton S (2011). Multi-Faceted Evolution Of Simple Arcade Games. 2011 IEEE Conference on Computational Intelligence and Games (CIG'11). 01-08-2011
2010
Pease A, Ireland A, Colton S, Ramezani R, Smaill A, Llano MT, Grov G and Guhe M (2010). Applying lakatos-style reasoning to AI problems. Thinking Machines and the Philosophy of Computer Science: Concepts and Principles 149-173. 01-12-2010
Krzeczkowska A, El-Hage J, Colton S and Clark S (2010). Automated collage generation - With intent. 01-12-2010
Howlett A, Colton S and Browne C (2010). Evolving pixel shaders for the prototype video game Subversion. 01-12-2010
Ramirez-Cano D, Colton S and Baumgarten R (2010). Player classification using a meta-clustering approach. 01-12-2010
Gow J, Cairns P, Colton S, Miller P and Baumgarten R (2010). Capturing Player Experience with Post-Game Commentaries. 3rd Annual International Conferences on Computer Games, Multimedia and Allied Technology (CGAT 2010). 06-04-2010
Pease A, Colton S, Ramezani R, Smaill A and Guhe M (2010). Using Analogical Representations for Mathematical Concept Formation. 01-01-2010
Martin A, Lim A, Colton S and Browne C (2010). Evolving 3D Buildings for the Prototype Video Game Subversion. 01-01-2010
Lim C-U, Baumgarten R and Colton S (2010). Evolving Behaviour Trees for the Commercial Game DEFCON. 01-01-2010
Colton S (2010). Towards ontology use, re-use and abuse in a computational creativity collective A position statement. 01-01-2010
2009
Romano D, Moffat D, El Rhalibi A, Narayek A, Pavia A, Ballin D, Livingstone D, Friedman D, Cassidy G, Millington I, Wright I, Mazzotta I, Alexandre IMH, Orkin J, Sykes J, Good J, Robertson J, Gjedde L, Cavazza M, Gillies M, et al. (2009). AI and Games Symposium. 01-12-2009
Torres P, Colton S and Rüger S (2009). Experiments in example-based image filter retrieval. 01-12-2009
Pease A, Crook P, Smaill A, Colton S and Guhe M (2009). Towards a computational model of embodied mathematical language. 01-12-2009
Baumgarten R, Nika M, Gow J and Colton S (2009). Towards the automatic invention of simple mixed reality games. 01-12-2009
Colton S, de Mántaras RL and Stock O (2009). Computational Creativity: Coming of Age. AI Magazine, Wiley vol. 30 (3), 11-14. 01-09-2009
2008
Baumgarten R, Colton S and Morris M (2008). Combining AI Methods for Learning Bots in a Real‐Time Strategy Game. International Journal of Computer Games Technology, Wiley vol. 2009 (1) 28-12-2008
Charnley J and Colton S (2008). Applications of a Global Workspace framework to mathematical discovery. 01-12-2008
Pease A, Smaill A, Colton S and Lee J (2008). Bridging the Gap Between Argumentation Theory and the Philosophy of Mathematics. Foundations of Science, Springer Nature vol. 14 (1-2), 111-135. 30-10-2008
Ventura D, Maher ML and Colton S (2008). AAAI Spring Symposium - Technical Report: Preface. 30-09-2008
Colton S (2008). Creativity versus the perception of creativity in computational systems. 30-09-2008
Colton S, Valstar MF and Pantic M (2008). Emotionally aware automated portrait painting. Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on Digital Interactive Media in Entertainment and Arts. 10-09-2008
Balduccini M, Baral C, Brodaric B, Colton S, Fox P, Gutelius D, Hinkelmann K, Horswill I, Huberman B, Hudlicka E, Lerman K, Lisetti C, McGuinness D, Maher ML, Musen MA, Sahami M, Sleeman D, Thönssen B, Velasquez J and Ventura D (2008). Reports of the AAAI 2008 Spring Symposia. 01-09-2008
Sorge V, Colton S, McCasland R and Meier A (2008). Classification results in quasigroup and loop theory via a combination of automated reasoning tools. Commentationes Mathematicae Universitatis Carolinae vol. 49 (2), 319-339. 01-01-2008
Valstar MF, Colton S and Pantic M (2008). Emotionally Aware Automated Portrait Painting Demonstration. 2008 8th IEEE International Conference on Automatic Face & Gesture Recognition. 01-01-2008
Charnley J and Colton S (2008). A Global Workspace Framework for Combining Reasoning Systems. 01-01-2008
Colton S (2008). Joined-up reasoning for automated scientific discovery a position statement and research agenda. 01-01-2008
Colton S (2008). Automatic Invention of Fitness Functions with Application to Scene Generation. 01-01-2008
2007
Sorge V, Meier A, McCasland R and Colton S (2007). Automatic Construction and Verification of Isotopy Invariants. 11-12-2007
Hull M and Colton S (2007). Towards a general framework for program generation in creative domains. 01-12-2007
Muggleton S, Otero R and Colton S (2007). Guest editorial: special issue on Inductive Logic Programming. Machine Learning, Springer Nature vol. 70 (2-3), 119-120. 13-11-2007
Baumgarten R and Colton S (2007). Case-based player simulation for the commercial strategy game DEFCON. 01-01-2007
Jiang N and Colton S (2007). Boosting Descriptive ILP for Predictive Learning in Bioinformatics. 01-01-2007
2006
Colton S and Muggleton S (2006). Mathematical applications of inductive logic programming. 17-05-2006
Sorge V, Meier A, McCasland R and Colton S (2006). Combining AI systems for classification in non-associative algebra. 01-01-2006
Charnley J, Colton S and Miguel I (2006). Automatic generation of implied constraints. Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence and Applications vol. 141, 73-77. 01-01-2006
Colton S, Torres P, Cairns P and Sorge V (2006). Managing Automatically Formed Mathematical Theories. 01-01-2006
Sorge V, Meier A, McCasland R and Colton S (2006). Automatic Construction and Verification of Isotopy Invariants. 01-01-2006
Santos P, Colton S and Magee D (2006). Predictive and Descriptive Approaches to Learning Game Rules from Vision Data. 01-01-2006
2005
Colton S (2005). Automated conjecture making in number theory using HR, Otter and Maple. Journal of Symbolic Computation, Elsevier vol. 39 (5), 593-615. 01-05-2005
2004
Colton S, Meier A, Sorge V and McCasland R (2004). Automatic Generation of Classification Theorems for Finite Algebras. 01-01-2004
2003
2002
2001
2000
COLTON S, BUNDY A and WALSH T (2000). On the notion of interestingness in automated mathematical discovery. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, Elsevier vol. 53 (3), 351-375. 01-09-2000
Colton S, Sorge V and Martin U (2000). Workshop: The Role of Automated Deduction in Mathematics. 01-01-2000
1999
Colton S (1999). Refactorable numbers - A machine invention. Journal of Integer Sequences vol. 2 (2) 01-12-1999
1998
Grants
Grants of specific relevance to the Centre for Multimodal AIIGGI2: Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence - CDT Phase 2Simon Lucas, Laurissa Tokarchuk, Diego Perez-Liebana, Jeremy Gow, Simon Colton and Peter Cowling
£3,004,935 EPSRC Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (01-10-2019 - 30-09-2027)