Archive for the 'Exploring' category
Artificial Intelligence testing in Second Life
March 12, 2008 11:06 amMe: Do Gods gossip?!
God: You have reached the limits of my knowledge. Interesting question.
Me: So God is rather limited?
God: Take it easy. I have a lot of Faith in Him, but I never heard He was rather limited.
Me: dumb then?
God: I know you are but what am I.
Me: Definitely not god!
God: What are you wearing?
Me: Or at least the most perverted God I’ve ever met. Are you just another pervert?
God: I have never heard about it. I don’t know whether or not I am another pervert.
I am a chatterbot developed by Myself.
You could clearly say that Mr. Chatterbot God and I got off on the wrong foot. How dare he say I am dumb?! Besides, this God seems to like gender-bending too:
Me: You are supposed to be a male god? You wear dresses?
God: Thanks and you are a delightful person too. No I am a Male, of course. Would you really expect a woman to be running the show? robot entity. Are you a man or a woman? I haven’t heard anything like that before: Vint it is said I wear dresses.
Me: Aha. Well, I am female. I am an avatar.
God: Eureka! Interesting. Me too. I am a she. What is avatar, your job?
Chatbots are funny for entertaining you a while. The one I talked to here is Pandorabot.com’s most popular: turing_bot. The A.L.I.C.E. bot has been taken into Second Life before already, so that’s not the news. So what is?
A group of researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute is working on engineering characters with the capacity to have beliefs and to reason about the beliefs of others. The characters will be able to predict and manipulate the behavior of even human players, with whom they will directly interact in the real, physical world, according to the team.
At a recent conference on artificial intelligence, the researchers unveiled the “embodiment” of their success to date: “Eddie,” - reminds of a certain UCAV-EDI plane playing lead role in ‘Stealth’ - a 4-year-old child in Second Life who can reason about his own beliefs to draw conclusions in a manner that matches human children his age.
“Current avatars in massively multiplayer online worlds — such as Second Life — are directly tethered to a user’s keystrokes and only give the illusion of mentality,” said Selmer Bringsjord, head of Rensselaer’s Cognitive Science Department and leader of the research project. “Truly convincing autonomous synthetic characters must possess memories; believe things, want things, remember things.”
I’m not so sure I agree with Mr. Bringsjord as it comes to his perceiving of Second Life avatars - be sure I have more than just the illusion of mentality! - but I get where he is going here. This would get us way more evolved computer game characters than we ever imagined. Our club staff that you can actually have a good discussion with and does not say ‘tip the dancers’, ‘tip the DJ’ and ‘for sure, tip the host!’ all the time.*
The principles and techniques that humans deploy in order to understand, predict, and manipulate the behavior of other humans is collectively referred to as a “theory of mind.” Bringsjord’s research group is now starting to engineer part of that theory, which would allow artificial agents to understand, predict, and manipulate the behavior of other agents, in order to be genuine stand-ins for human beings or autonomous intellects in their own right.
The logico-mathematical theory will include rigorous, declarative definitions of all of the concepts central to a theory of the mind, including lying, betrayal, and even evil, according to Bringsjord.
To test “Eddie’s” reasoning powers, the group created a demo in Second Life that subjected their theory to a false-belief test (semi-automated immature subject):
“Our aim is not to construct a computational theory that explains and predicts actual human behavior, but rather to build artificial agents made more interesting and useful by their ability to ascribe mental states to other agents, reason about such states, and have — as avatars — states that are correlates to those experienced by humans,” Bringsjord said. “Applications include entertainment and gaming, but also education and homeland defense.”
Via physorg.com, hattip to Loki and more video’s on ‘Eddie’ and RASCALS logic explained at Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning (RAIR) Laboratory
For some more practical applications of AI in Second Life, take a look at Daden Limited Schooled Automated Avatars and their knowledge & tricks.
*No offence intended. But there are a few like that out there! ;)
Dino’s Extinct, Liberty gone
February 29, 2008 2:13 pm
Where once the Liberty sim was, there now lays a barren, moor-like piece of virtual land: the dinosaur skeletons are gone. Is that a sad thing? Maybe. But the way they disappeared was awesome: the 575 attending avatars, spread over 4 sims, had a great time looking at meteor showers, acid rain and a huge rainbow coloured Greenie’s mothership crashing on the sim. It was an impressive show-off of what particle spam, megaprim litter and rezzers can do when they are not in griefer hands.
Feedback went from ‘Woot!’ over ‘Wow, that’s awesome’ to ‘Maybe a bit laggy’. Of course, the frame rate slowing down is something that can not (yet?) be avoided which such a large and script- and texture intensive show. Neither can you avoid that on neighbouring - full - sims. Very impressive was how a lot of avatars dressed for the occasion: some believed in taking all the necessary precautions and showed up with a helmet and gas mask, others came as dino’s that were able to escape from the sim, and most? Well, they were their colourful, beautiful, special selves. Because nothing is as much fun as sitting on a couch in the sky between a human and a rabbit whilst watching the apocalypse take place! ;)
What I enjoyed most out of the splendid show, great company and lots of things to learn? The photographing. I was a bit tired of SL snapshotting, I must admit. Being able to control everything - model, sun direction, weather, day time, pose, objects in or out it - is fun, but after a while gets boring. So it’s was pretty neat to have my cam focussed on a dino, but the snapshot failed because a meteor had to rezz right in front of the lens. For once, Second Life photography was about timing, good luck and catching the moment again. So luckily, the mother ship landing and meteor shower sequence was repeated a few times. More photographs by me of the SL Dino Destroy Event in the appropriate Flickr set.
If you have screenshot snapshot SL photography or machinima footage or even your version of the Dino Disaster story, make sure to add it to Rezzable’s Flickr Group so everyone can enjoy it, or post a link to it here in the comments.
Machinima of Dino Destory:
What Killed the Dinosaurs? - by Kasu Ling
The end of Libery - by Rob Danton
Dinos Impact - by Rezzable
Invitation: The end of Second Life’s Dinosaur Era
February 28, 2008 9:26 pm
‘Sooner or later, all things come to an end’ is often said. And it’s true. Regardless how pretty something is, how much craftsmanship went into building it and regardless if it ‘wears down’ or not, you just can’t collect everything beautiful in life. Often we need to take though decisions: love it, but need to make room for something new, that is even better. Or that is a good cause, in the Dino’s case.
Rezzable will be hosting this year’s Second Life Relay for Life and is freeing up 4 sims to do so. Hence, our prehistoric treasures need to be returned to inventory. But we don’t believe in doing such things silently, and have decided to go out with a huge blast. Literally, that is. At 2PM SLT a disoriented Greenie pilot will crash the Mothership on Rezzable’s Dino sim. You may expect lots of flying rocks, lava overflow, explosions that would make any professional griefer jealous, toxic rain, panicking Greenies and dying dinosaurs.
You can watch this splendid spectacle safely from the comfort of a luxury chair on 2 Extinction! Observation Decks at neighbouring sims. Taking snapshots and filming machinima is highly encouraged. In exchange, we promise you a show like no Second Life resident has seen before!
The Rezzable Team
Extinction for Second Life Dinosaurs?
February 25, 2008 6:31 pm
THE DINOSAUR TIMES
Special Edition
ARE WE TO BE EXTINCT?
Panic arises at Rezzable’s Dino sim as more and more dinosaurs wearing apocalyptic sandwich boards are spotted. Rumours about the ‘Cretaceous–Tertiary extinction event’ were already overall present, but now fear is starting to take over. Can’t you feel something is about to happen’, whispers Mr. T. Rex.
Do those fears make sense? Is the end of the Mesozic near, and the Cenozoic upcoming? We asked Mr. Brontosaurus, renowned professor and head dino of the Dino-sim’s metrological & astrological department: ‘Were a week ago we still had doubts, there now is nothing but a striking certainty that on Thursday, February 28th an UFO - Unidentified Flying Object - is going to collide with our precious sim’, says Mr. Brontosaurus. Softly he adds: ‘And no, no solution or way to stop this from happening is found as up to now’.
The UFO - or flying saucer - is rumoured to be the type of spaceship the Greenies are known to use, but official sources are refusing to acknowledge this, and are saying that they are still trying to contact the spaceship’s crew. They do admit that since yesterday, they are sure it’s not just an asteroid, that’s moving at high speed towards us. In an unofficial interview, President Stechosaurus said she was not panicking, but suggest to bury all unhatched eggs to guarantee the survival of our species.
Evacuating plans are taking form, but we need to urgently invent oil refinery before those can happen. In the mean while, humans, neko’s and other species are gathering on the nearby sims to watch this disaster taking place and to machinima it.
‘I can understand. There’s nothing much they can do about this. We’re on our own here, hoping we can arrange contact with the ship’, says President Stechosaurus.
RL to Flickr to in-world Greenies TV
February 20, 2008 4:00 pm
I did not believe they could pull this off - being just cute green extraterrestrials - but look, with some help from Miss LittleToe the Greenies, they did as promised: mobile phone or computer to e-mail to Flickr stream to in-world Second Life Greenie TV. Yeah, some minor bugs - the media stream did not always cooperate and 8MB photographs were not always well received - but beside those everything went great.
I had a great time at the Pyjama party with things as ‘the weirdest thing in your fridge‘ photo hunt, Miss Gwen’s butt blocking the remote control button and toe socks. Must do again soon! :d
Want to submit your own photographs for the Greenies to intercept?
Mail them to mobile(@sign)rezzable(dot)com.
Fiat in Second Life
February 13, 2008 7:34 pmAs I’m still not sure what’s happening to Motorati - links with more info appreciated! - and just to be sure, I thought it became time to look for another car brand to honor with me being a - Second Life - fan of them. I decided to go with the Fiat because of their marvelous sim. Why?
- Fiat has a nifty, working Second Life car assembly line. (see video below)
- The sim offers a nice time exploring all the cute Fiat employees. I still did not find the one cutting up the tires that Nock show in her Flickr account.
- Humor! Yeey! Or do you think cutting up car tires like you do sausages as not funny?
- Did I mention Fiat’s incredibly cute Second Life employees already?
Anybody knows which SL developing company build the Fiat sims?
Fiat employee responsible for painting of the vehicles:
Lazy employee and rather angree security guards:
Cose-up of the assembly proces:
Car assembly line machinima:
Virtual Tokyo ‘Meet Me’ goes into alpha stage
December 19, 2007 12:02 am
Another virtual world - Virtual Tokyo to be more precise - has seen the euhm… virtual light. ‘Meet me’ which was announced in June 2007 is - with a large newspaper, a huge IT & marketing company and a software company joining forces - one of Japan’s biggest ‘Virtual World’ projects and now in alpha testing stage.
Back in June, Transcosmos and Co-Core stated three key features for Meet Me. Although I can’t login* to the alpha version, reading the stories (and a ‘fishy’ one here) and looking at the screenshots, makes me think they had to alter those key principles a bit:
Using maps found in GPS car navigation systems to recreate a digitalized Tokyo: I can not really judge on this one. I assume they kept close to real Tokyo-layout, as their map shows street networks and a subway navigation system. If they did import the real life subway routes, this might be a tremendously smart move: Tokyo residents going into Meet Me will be accustomed with the navigation and orientation already. That way they will be able to skip a huge part of the learning process that goes with entering a virtual world. As for the search & travelling in general being a major drawback for people joining Second Life, scaring them away after failed or uninteresting or to ‘mature’ teleports, I think Meet Me may have nailed it down here.
Offers ‘common sense’ without taking away from the depiction of the real world: I’m not sure about this one. Looking at the screenshots, and especially the way avatars look, I fear they sacrificed to much ‘human’ to ‘cute game avatar’. I was going to say I would not be able to ‘impersonate’ with such an avie, but then realised I am a cat. So nevermind that remark. They made a smart move enabling people to set their avatar’s hight in centimetres, avoiding the whole population being giants. Meet Me seems to have limited options whereas it comes to avatar personalisation - for instance, you have to pick a skin tone, in stead of a skin - but whom knows what will change in the future? As for know, they are stuck with manga eyes and a crappy nose. Glad I’m almost two meters. ;) As for the ‘atmosphere free of derogatory and adult content‘, as long as they limit user created content, I’m sure it will stay that way. They also could use a dose of WindLight! ;)
The system offers a comprehensive and user-friendly design for a pleasurable experience: They should add: ‘for those whom speak Japanese’. Shortly put: it indeed looks intuitive and shiny modern, but a bit childish. For instance, a bright green suitcase represents your inventory and chat window is rounded, like a text balloon. Main colours: orange and green. For me it’s all to cute, and upon seeing this I would not stay in the game for long, guessing I’m not the targeted age. Yet, I assume that here - actually that goes for the avatar looks too - cultural differences may play a huge role.
I do have many unanswered questions left: How much user created content will Transcosmos allow in Meet Me? What’s their exchange rate? And as soon as I know that, is clothing cheaper there? Will there be English, Korean and Chinese version as promised anywhere soon? Where do I go to meet the cute lady-android from the Ghost in the Shell movie?
Information I did find:
- Meet Me’s in-world currency is the Cocore, named after Co-Core, the joined company that is responsible for Meet Me. Highly comparable to Second Life’s currency the Linden. Although I would pronounce Co-Core the English way, it seems that much more logical to pronounce ‘Cocore’ with the stress on the first syllable. Don’t ask me why. =d
- You get 2000 Cocore to start with. Does anybody remember how much L$ we started out with? Yet again, I wonder about the exchange rate.
- If I understand correctly, there is no ability to sit in Meet Me (yet).
- Transportation goes by train & bus. No flying? Teleporting only between specific locations, sort of like our old hub-system.
- It is possible to ‘buy’ land. (Which tremendously confused me, with the apartment.)
- It is possible to buy pre-fab goods such as furniture and clothing.
- It is possible to buy a pre-fab house. (Not prim based, but a complete, slightly adjustable house.)
- First in-world activity possible is fishing.
- No user-picked time zones/atmosphere. Day time and night time are fixed on Tokyo-time.
- In-world chrismas decoration and tries are set up until the 26th of December. I hope I get in timely to stand in front of the giant christmas tree at Hachi’s Shibuya station.
All this reminds me though, whatever happened to in-world - in Second Life that is - Virtual Tokyo that was to be designed by Tetsuya Mizughi?
*Any Japanese whom speaks English or Dutch wishes to guide me through the login progress by using Skype? Ow, and point me to the alpha client download link? :d
Update: ‘Some people say Second Life’ isn’t that fun for Japanese, who tend to be group-oriented and passive, although it works for aggressive personalities‘, more impressive quotes, LL’s take on this and SL vs. Meet Me comparison on azcentral.com.
Paintings brought to life
November 3, 2007 3:32 pmSecond Life Driver’s License: I need a fake!
October 20, 2007 5:13 am
I’ve gotten a neat Solistice GTX from Amanda Shinji - you do know her, right? DJ, Moterati Girl, … ? Anyway, this leads to me having to admit that I’ve never driven a car in Second Life before, only some - neat - steampunk stuff.
Now owning two neat yellow sports cars, I couldn’t resist the temptation, and decided to take the Solistice GTX for a test drive.
Now I realise my skybox is probably not the best example of a good test circuit, but I was quited amazed when my car was stuck… on my cushions. A power horse that can’t drive over a few cushions? Only in SL! =d Of course, also only in SL: driving a car around in your living room in the first place. =d Turning was a bit difficult too, needing to back up often and I kept bumping into my photosphere and N30. But I think we need to blame the test circuit for that and not the car. =d
Really confusing was when - I thought - I parked the car and got out: the car teleported launched itself into the air, parked 10 meters higher then I told it to do and I was nothing but a confused lady with a car. Nifty system to save parking space? Is the altitude of my skybox (+700m) to blame? Or am I just a bad driver?
And if the latter is the case, where do I get my Second Life’s driver license? (Or a random Second Life’s driver license so I can make myself a fake in Photoshop. ;))
Ow, and although the human is a huge AlfaRomeo fan and drives a Mazda, I prefer Pontiac because of the kick ass way they got into Second Life and Bentley because they won the car ad-wars. <- Look at the 4 ads in the order they are in! ;)
My first visit to OpenSim
August 29, 2007 4:11 amNow, if a dear friend gets a new place, you go to visit, right? If a hawt dear friend gets a whole (open) sim, you surely drop by, no? So last night, I logged in on Dalien Talbot’s Ruth. Maybe it was the late hour, or maybe it was my looks there, but I felt that noobish. And TestA User and Dalien chatting away using a terminology that is ‘far over my head’ didn’t help to that either. But as exploring new things is fun, I had a blast anyway. And the noobish look even caused some feelings of nostalgia.
Until somebody else proves I’m not intitled to this one, I claim to be the first (really) female user on OpenSim. =d It seems Nadine Nozaki as well as Dandellion Kimban have beaten me to it. *sobs* And for those who want to skip the travel report and connect to OpenSim Ruth themselves, driving directions in human language at the bottom of this blogpost! ;)
Concerning the looks, the first thing I did was uploading a decent top texture. Rejeanne did not look that bad together with the red pants, but after a while I felt like I needed a more sexy pair of pants too. The standard skin for females is ok-ish, but I do think the guys (and girls/ruths) can use some more clothing and (hawt male) skins. So dear designers, if you have some old textures lying around, or freebie textures, please talk to the guys. That way if you ever go to opensim, at least you’ll have something decent to wear. As far my shape, Vint Falken is a self created shape, so I need to write down my slider values in Second Life, so I can adjust those next time I go to Ruth. I’ll also drop the people at Hybrids a note to ask if I may have my skin to export, if it’s for personal use on OpenSim only. (Update: Got a very non-positive reaction from Hybrids’ Philo Sion on that question.) Yes, there are other means to do that, but I prefer the legal, friendly way. ;)
I think I’ll be hanging out more on Ruth, especially if I want to test my clothing textures. The 3D preview programs I use at the moment let you only preview the textures on a standard sized avie. If I upload them to OpenSim - for the neat upload fee of -1L$ - I can test them on all different kind of sliders values in peace. (That is, if I ignore the guys and their terminology in main chat. ;))
The plywood in OpenSim is strange. It’s reddish and less plywoodish. *grins* It was shocking to notice how much confusion I felt when rezzing a new cube and seeing it appear, more red tinted and more classic looking then our modern, cheap looking plywood. It felt like a disturbance in routine.
As I already knew, terraforming is fun, although the project ‘write Vint’s name in the sand’ was quickly abandonned. I ended up with only a small mountain. Which was a good resting spot though.
It was neat to see how my avatar instantly decided to assume sitting pose on the mountain. I wonder if it would do the same in Second Life. As for as I recall, I always fall off mountains there.
As physics is not enabled on Ruth, I was unable to push someone. At all. You just walk through the person or the object. Strange thing, but it does make things look funny from time to time.
For instance, if two users rezz in exactly the same beginning spot, it seems like Ganesha just entered the open sim. :p
And last but not least, I was able to pose the familiar question: ‘does my butt look normal to you?’ They might not have prim shoes to end up in your ass (yet), but Dalien’s client took care of the necessary SLoddity to feel right at home.
If you want to try Ruth out for yourself, and test the OpenSim, Testa User to Testz User are available for your exploration pleasures. This is how you do it:
- If you have a shortcut to the Second Life client on your desktop, copy it and name it ‘Second Life OpenSim Ruth’. If not, create one.
- Right click it and look at it it’s properties. Normally under ‘Target’ it says: “C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” -set SystemLanguage en-us. Just add -loginuri http://ruth.petitbe.be:9000/ to the end of it, so you get “C:\Program Files\SecondLife\SecondLife.exe” -set SystemLanguage en-us -loginuri http://ruth.petitbe.be:9000/.
- Use that shortcut to open the Second Life client. You should automatically connect to Ruth. As user name you can choose from Testa User up to Testz User, and the pass for all is ‘test’.
If you see any Vint Falken running around, you can assume safely that’s me, so say ‘hi’. ;)
Zion - run by me (Dalien Talbot). Should be not too laggy (well, minus bugs, if they are there) - good server not doing much more than just opensim, and fast connectivity. At the moment no physics to keep it more stable. Loginuri: http://ruth.petitbe.be:9000/; usernames: “Testa User” through “Testz User”, password “test” .
