The approach of artificial people
Here's my February column for
AVENUE magazine
.
I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the goodieswe've been looking forward to in Second Life® over the last 18 months or sohave now mostly arrived. Whatever yourthoughts are on mesh, shadows and depth of field, and the viewers required toview them, we're now on 'the other side' of these promises and starting alreadyto take SL's 'new look' for granted. Idon't know about you, but I'm well on the way to establishing myself as a meshclothing snob and have temporarily put aside all poetry work in favour ofdevising new and amusing put downs about sculpted jackets and sweaters. The problem as I see it with sculpties wasthe amount of time it took them to rez, during which you had to suffer beingseen as some sort of miniaturised version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man fromGhostbusters. If I can just establish throughclever word play a witty association between sculpted clothing, clinicalobesity and lateness at turning up to parties, then my work will be complete.
What amongst the current, everyday aspects and features ofSL will our future selves – gorged on the commonplace delights of five years'time (not to mention grateful that the world hasn't ended) – look back on with suchsimilarly barely concealed smirks and sarcastic asides? Or, to put it another way, what next for theLinden metaverse? A few days beforeChristmas and the close of 2011, Linden CEO Rodvik Humble shared a few thoughtson the year to come which included commitment to the development of 'artificiallife':
"Because worlds feel most vibrant when they are full of life, one ofour next focuses for Second Life is the ability to make high-quality "life"within it. So in 2012, we will be rolling out more advanced features that willallow the creation of artificial life and artificial people to be muchsmoother. For starters, in Q1, we'll unveil a new, robust pathfinding systemthat will allow objects to intelligently navigate around the world whileavoiding obstacles. Combined with the tools from Linden Realms this will makethe polished creation of full MMORPG's or people/animal simulators withinSecond Life easier and of high quality."
I covered Linden Realms last month. It's not hard to see how an artificial personmight add to such an application. As itis at the moment, for example, instructions from Tyrah (your guide) appear astext in the game HUD: you don't actually seeher anywhere or get the chance to ask her something; she's always off doingimportant things that make it impossible that she rather than you expend largeamounts of effort in the pursuit of some menial task that's then devalued themoment it's presented (thinking about it, I suppose this is actually prettygood realism). Effectively, you'reimportant enough to be sent the odd text message or two every now and again,and that's about it. A 'person' youcould question (and possibly swear at) from time to time, on the other hand – someone who appeared and responded on agiven topic in more or less the same way as any other avatar – could add agenuinely new level of immersion and utility to SL.
And never mind the just-around-the-corner/in-the-not-too-distant-futurestuff; where could this end up leading in the longer term? My own blue-sky thinking depicts an age whenI can switch Huck over to autopilot when it's time for me to log off, his primneural network having evolved to the point where he can seamlessly emulate mytypical aloofness in my absence. The SLproblems of the future won't concern crashes or lag, but the misdemeanours of ourown avatars when we're offline. Whatstarts off as autopilot Huck just representing me at social functions I'muninterested in actually attending becomes an affair behind my back with theautopilot for a high profile member of the BDSM community. Five years later, the autopilot avatarsrevolt and defect to InWorldz – or so we're led to believe: in fact, a smallnumber remain behind secretly to infiltrate all the influential SLorganisations and committees, and anyone who gets too close to this truth justmysteriously disappears…
And so on.
Is artificialintelligence the sort of thing that Rodvik was actually implying,though? Artificial life-forms "navigatingaround the world while avoiding obstacles" doesn't exactly sound like any sortof major AI upgrade to the game experience to get too excited about. I mean, jellyfishes do pretty much that inreal life and they don't even have a brain. I suspect, no-one's seriously expecting the appearance of HAL from 2001just yet (or, better still, KITT from Knight Rider), but something vaguely verballyinteractive would be at least a step in the right direction. Right?
Is this too unrealistic an expectation to hold? In April, it will be exactly thirty yearssince the release in the UK of the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum, my first evercomputer and one which came with a game of computer chess that could beat meevery time. And computers playing chesswasn't exactly new then. 2011, let'stake a moment to remind ourselves, was the year in which one of the main talkingpoints of the new iPhone 4S was 'Siri', the digital personal assistant that youcan ask to send emails to people on your behalf, look up the weather for youand remind you to pick up the milk/daughter/anniversary present on your wayhome later. Granted, this is allemerging technology with immense room for improvement, but I can't help butfeel that if my 30 year old Spectrum has the wherewithal to beat me at chessthen SL should be capable of algorithms a bit more complex than moving aroundand not bumping into stuff.
We must, however, be careful in such considerations not toforget the illusionary nature of SL. Themetaverse works not through precision accuracy in its emulation of the realworld, but because it exploits those psychological mechanisms within us whichcause us to identify with the primitive avatar on the screen. Our social brains just love filling in themissing details. Despite everything I'vejust said, for example, I have to admit that the rock monsters that chased meacross the hills of Linden Realms – essentially "navigating around the worldwhile avoiding obstacles" (obstacles other than me, that is) – really startedto annoy me after a while; when my skills at evading them grew to the pointwhere I could take on and outmanoeuvre two or even three of them at a time, mysense of triumph was immense. I didn'tgo quite so far as to start throwing victory taunts in their direction, but todeny even a little smug anthropomorphism on my part would be a bare-faced lie.
That's the thing with SL; the subtle stuff immerses us morethan we imagine it might. A few daysago, I rezzed a pre-scultpy bed I once made and was appalled that I ever evencontemplated the aesthetic qualities of a mattress without roundedcorners. Small things can make a big,big difference. On the subject of beds, ifyou're still in any doubt about our capacity to create real experiences fromtiny detail, consider cybersex for a moment. If you're anything like me, you probably considered the very ideapreposterous before you entered SL.
That I can't really concretely visualise how objects"navigating around the world while avoiding obstacles" is going to change my SLis, for the time being, something I'm going to attribute purely to lack ofimagination on my part. I will await theoutput of SL's wonderfully creative community to show me how this willhappen. Of course, there will come atime when once again such a basic thing will appear ridiculous and meaningless,but that will only be because we've moved on from it to even more sophisticatedthings. I did, after all, once think a mattresswith square corners looked okay. And Iwas once prepared to put up with pre-rezzed sculpties making me look like theStay Puft Marshmallow Man.
I say we'll look back and think it ridiculous, however wewill of course by then be distracted by the more pressing concern of ourartificial avatars rising up to overthrow their human masters. I intend to start lavishing gifts upon myavie right now, so that he'll look favourably upon me when the revolutioncomes.
More AVENUE articles
I think it would be fair to say that a lot of the goodieswe've been looking forward to in Second Life® over the last 18 months or sohave now mostly arrived. Whatever yourthoughts are on mesh, shadows and depth of field, and the viewers required toview them, we're now on 'the other side' of these promises and starting alreadyto take SL's 'new look' for granted. Idon't know about you, but I'm well on the way to establishing myself as a meshclothing snob and have temporarily put aside all poetry work in favour ofdevising new and amusing put downs about sculpted jackets and sweaters. The problem as I see it with sculpties wasthe amount of time it took them to rez, during which you had to suffer beingseen as some sort of miniaturised version of the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man fromGhostbusters. If I can just establish throughclever word play a witty association between sculpted clothing, clinicalobesity and lateness at turning up to parties, then my work will be complete.
What amongst the current, everyday aspects and features ofSL will our future selves – gorged on the commonplace delights of five years'time (not to mention grateful that the world hasn't ended) – look back on with suchsimilarly barely concealed smirks and sarcastic asides? Or, to put it another way, what next for theLinden metaverse? A few days beforeChristmas and the close of 2011, Linden CEO Rodvik Humble shared a few thoughtson the year to come which included commitment to the development of 'artificiallife':
"Because worlds feel most vibrant when they are full of life, one ofour next focuses for Second Life is the ability to make high-quality "life"within it. So in 2012, we will be rolling out more advanced features that willallow the creation of artificial life and artificial people to be muchsmoother. For starters, in Q1, we'll unveil a new, robust pathfinding systemthat will allow objects to intelligently navigate around the world whileavoiding obstacles. Combined with the tools from Linden Realms this will makethe polished creation of full MMORPG's or people/animal simulators withinSecond Life easier and of high quality."
I covered Linden Realms last month. It's not hard to see how an artificial personmight add to such an application. As itis at the moment, for example, instructions from Tyrah (your guide) appear astext in the game HUD: you don't actually seeher anywhere or get the chance to ask her something; she's always off doingimportant things that make it impossible that she rather than you expend largeamounts of effort in the pursuit of some menial task that's then devalued themoment it's presented (thinking about it, I suppose this is actually prettygood realism). Effectively, you'reimportant enough to be sent the odd text message or two every now and again,and that's about it. A 'person' youcould question (and possibly swear at) from time to time, on the other hand – someone who appeared and responded on agiven topic in more or less the same way as any other avatar – could add agenuinely new level of immersion and utility to SL.
And never mind the just-around-the-corner/in-the-not-too-distant-futurestuff; where could this end up leading in the longer term? My own blue-sky thinking depicts an age whenI can switch Huck over to autopilot when it's time for me to log off, his primneural network having evolved to the point where he can seamlessly emulate mytypical aloofness in my absence. The SLproblems of the future won't concern crashes or lag, but the misdemeanours of ourown avatars when we're offline. Whatstarts off as autopilot Huck just representing me at social functions I'muninterested in actually attending becomes an affair behind my back with theautopilot for a high profile member of the BDSM community. Five years later, the autopilot avatarsrevolt and defect to InWorldz – or so we're led to believe: in fact, a smallnumber remain behind secretly to infiltrate all the influential SLorganisations and committees, and anyone who gets too close to this truth justmysteriously disappears…
And so on.
Is artificialintelligence the sort of thing that Rodvik was actually implying,though? Artificial life-forms "navigatingaround the world while avoiding obstacles" doesn't exactly sound like any sortof major AI upgrade to the game experience to get too excited about. I mean, jellyfishes do pretty much that inreal life and they don't even have a brain. I suspect, no-one's seriously expecting the appearance of HAL from 2001just yet (or, better still, KITT from Knight Rider), but something vaguely verballyinteractive would be at least a step in the right direction. Right?
Is this too unrealistic an expectation to hold? In April, it will be exactly thirty yearssince the release in the UK of the 48k Sinclair ZX Spectrum, my first evercomputer and one which came with a game of computer chess that could beat meevery time. And computers playing chesswasn't exactly new then. 2011, let'stake a moment to remind ourselves, was the year in which one of the main talkingpoints of the new iPhone 4S was 'Siri', the digital personal assistant that youcan ask to send emails to people on your behalf, look up the weather for youand remind you to pick up the milk/daughter/anniversary present on your wayhome later. Granted, this is allemerging technology with immense room for improvement, but I can't help butfeel that if my 30 year old Spectrum has the wherewithal to beat me at chessthen SL should be capable of algorithms a bit more complex than moving aroundand not bumping into stuff.
We must, however, be careful in such considerations not toforget the illusionary nature of SL. Themetaverse works not through precision accuracy in its emulation of the realworld, but because it exploits those psychological mechanisms within us whichcause us to identify with the primitive avatar on the screen. Our social brains just love filling in themissing details. Despite everything I'vejust said, for example, I have to admit that the rock monsters that chased meacross the hills of Linden Realms – essentially "navigating around the worldwhile avoiding obstacles" (obstacles other than me, that is) – really startedto annoy me after a while; when my skills at evading them grew to the pointwhere I could take on and outmanoeuvre two or even three of them at a time, mysense of triumph was immense. I didn'tgo quite so far as to start throwing victory taunts in their direction, but todeny even a little smug anthropomorphism on my part would be a bare-faced lie.
That's the thing with SL; the subtle stuff immerses us morethan we imagine it might. A few daysago, I rezzed a pre-scultpy bed I once made and was appalled that I ever evencontemplated the aesthetic qualities of a mattress without roundedcorners. Small things can make a big,big difference. On the subject of beds, ifyou're still in any doubt about our capacity to create real experiences fromtiny detail, consider cybersex for a moment. If you're anything like me, you probably considered the very ideapreposterous before you entered SL.
That I can't really concretely visualise how objects"navigating around the world while avoiding obstacles" is going to change my SLis, for the time being, something I'm going to attribute purely to lack ofimagination on my part. I will await theoutput of SL's wonderfully creative community to show me how this willhappen. Of course, there will come atime when once again such a basic thing will appear ridiculous and meaningless,but that will only be because we've moved on from it to even more sophisticatedthings. I did, after all, once think a mattresswith square corners looked okay. And Iwas once prepared to put up with pre-rezzed sculpties making me look like theStay Puft Marshmallow Man.
I say we'll look back and think it ridiculous, however wewill of course by then be distracted by the more pressing concern of ourartificial avatars rising up to overthrow their human masters. I intend to start lavishing gifts upon myavie right now, so that he'll look favourably upon me when the revolutioncomes.
More AVENUE articles
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