A.I. in V.R. and A.R. ; Bots and Virtual Assistants.
by Zen— www.ThisIsMeInVR.com
By now you’ve tried some Virtual Reality Games and you may have noticed something missing from them; pc driven computer players.
In most Video games there are NPCs. These are artificial characters (or animals) that simply populate the game and wander around doing “whatever”, until you interact with them, (like civilians in Grand Theft Auto or other cars in racing games).
These are “Ai” programs given tasks and rules to follow to help create a more “life-like” environment.
Sadly in VR these are still completely lacking. If you happen to explore Social virtual worlds like , AltSpaceVR or Oculus Rooms and Parties (by Facebook) or even SportsBarVR on the PlayStation VR system you will notice something is missing. Most of these rooms are empty. (sports bar does has non-functional frozen NPCs that just stand there).
Part of why Virtual Environments are so immersive is their similarity to real life. As VR games start integrating Standard gaming technology such as Ai bots and PC driven characters, you may find Computer creations wandering around doing seemingly little…. but the meaning of this even is HUGE.
This is an important moment about to happen. In VR humans have less calculated input than a CGI character can have, e.g. body language gestures and head movement (also information access about you). Once AI is added to the mix, it may suddenly get much harder to differentiate between who’s real and who is a CGI creation. ..
How do you know who is human? How do you know who is an embodiedAi ?
A “PC character “ in Werewolves Within, may not be so easy to “sniff out” as a non-human character if the algorithm properly recognizes when it is being addressed and simply responds with… “I am a villager” , in a lifelike voice with lifelike movements, (though no human operator exists)
This happemns already in StarTrek Bridge Crew with IBM Watson (it has a body in that game)
With the inteoduction of EmbodiedAi, like a conversational Ai but with a whole avatar body…
VR worlds are about to suddenly be less lonely but much more confusing. Am I playing pool with a person? A learning AI? Or am I hanging out with a Bot that is only here to help me or influence me into buying aomething?
In the near future, you should expect that while you are in your Virtual Environment or augmented life, you will begin to see games being populated by computer creations that are nearly indistinguishable from human players aside from some unusual movements and possibly language syntax errors, (reminiscent of someone not using their primary language). The line will get very blurry. Will people make mistakes?
YES.
does anthropomorphisation occur easily in humans?
Absolutely!.
Will anyone fall in love with a bot by accident? Most definitely.
These are some very interesting questions.
The issue is already slowly arising with bots in dating apps. (sort of)
how people behave in #VR #metaverses is quite different than you might expect. https://eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2019-01/uobc-pta012319.php
As augmented reality becomes more prevalent, you should also expect your Virtual assistant to make an appearance. Rather than a voice in your ear, giving you help and recommendations. AI may rapidly evolve into a CGI superimposition into your life which gives you a real or ghost-like (transparent) figure in your presence, (field of view) giving you advice and offering services, right to your face. Your new best AR/VR friend may actually be a program someday (see Facebook’s plan) . In the AI movie HER they failed to add a visual overlay on any video screen (including VR ) that showed the AI’s visual form. In truth, as people are highly visual creatures, You can rest assured most VR/AR companies will not skip this step.
For example, your Microsoft assistant, Cortana will have an avatar body you can see in the Microsoft AR/VR headset. And with IFTTT requests, now she can do almost anything.
Putting a familiar face and body on your personal VR/AR AI assistant.
VR AR Environments, are about to see a surge of population due to consumer adoption, but just like twitter and Facebook, you should soon expect a large influx of Users that are actually Bots. There, with their own agenda. Perhaps, to help you with issues, to sell you products perhaps even to flirt with you to make their VR game or app seem more enjoyable. Whatever their goal is, you should expect them to be very successful as this form of manipulation offers untold opportunities.
this brings up ethical concerns
more embodied AI in the news:
