“Digital Artifact – AI – Avatar Identity”
The week’s lifestream entries reflected the work that went into the production of the digital artifact for the Digital Cultures course at http://atate.org/ai/ai/ and related experimentation with non-player character (NPC) production via scripts in OpenSim. I use this to produce avatar clones in various outfits in a fantastical scene that might have elements of utopia in my eye. and that reflected a lot of my personal interests. The ghostly “avatar cloud” that appears in Second Life and OpenSim virtual worlds viewers as an avatar rezzes into its form was appealing to me as a “better” represent on of what it is to be an avatar… and I wanted to capture this strange and unsettling element as part of the artifact. I found suitable script and texture resources to recreate this both as a stand along object as as a partially rezzed, but never fully rezzing version on an avatar clone.
VW Cloud Avatar
The Cyberchat between my two avatars equipped with MyCyberTwin chat bot via a web interface was interesting to observe. See http://atate.org/ai/ai/res/2011-10-09-chat-log-ai-and-be.txt. I was very surprised at how well they did with relatively little training, and no FAQ or tutorial sections in their repertoire.. which is possible with the technology provided. They seemed very civil. I tried to manually intervene a few times… but they seemed to chat on quite well, even changing the subject them,selves a couple of times.
IDEL11 in Second Life
The IDEL11 course moved some of its work and tutorials in Second life… which I am familiar with, so I was on home turf a bit there. I observed the other new users and their avatars to see how they got on, as part of my research and project work involves supporting new communities and simplifying the access experience for people collaborating using virtual worlds alongside other collaborative technologies.