Bringing Life to Virtual Worlds

20Mar08

I noticed a problem on most islands in Second Life, specially on corporate islands: they are empty. Not empty in the way that there is nothing on them: they are usually nicely designed, with nice buildings, terraces and gardens. But there is nobody, no other avatars, and nothing to interact with. Maybe a panel to look at here, a video to stream there, and maybe a notecard to skim over. But no life.

It doesn’t necessarily mean that those islands are failures. Depending on what the creators had in mind, they might even be very successful. For instance a corporate island might be setup for meetings, and hence be empty when there is none. But if you want to use it as a communication medium, to show your products, attract new customers, have them live an experience with the hope of some day making a sale, an empty island is a very bad sign.

An empty island hinders the experience of lone travelers. You remember Will Smith walking through an empty NYC in I am a legend? That’s the kind of experience people have when they walk through an empty corporate island, minus any kind of fun (after all, seeing NYC empty is quite a thing). The best solution to this problem would be, of course, to have actual people greeting the visitors. But actual people would make rather expensive receptionists and guides for SL.

So here we are: bots. Why bots ? They are cheap, and can actually convey information. You can have a bot greeting people, telling them a couple of things about your island, and suddenly they won’t feel lonely anymore, and will know what your island is all about. Second Life is built for interaction between avatars, so I believe that’s the right way to communicate in it.

We are developing such a bot, named Hotep Milena, on our island (MASA Group, not yet opened to the public). As I am writing she can: greet people who are getting in the zone she is monitoring, navigate through her environment to meet them and engage in a conversation, and answer simple questions about Masa Group. She should be ready to bother our visitors soon, so stay tuned!

Alexis Tabary

[update 03/25/2008] New picture of Hotep Milena, Masa Group island bot.

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Tags: AI, avatars, bots, second life