Ben Goertzel states that virtual worlds are critical to the development of AI, but how critical is AI to virtual worlds?
Ben Goertzel, a leading proponent of AGI (Artificial General Intelligence), has always pushed the idea of using virtual worlds to gather feedback and accelerate AI development. It was over a year ago that he posted, On the Merits of Parrots, about distributing AI parrots around virtual worlds so users could interact with them and accelerate the development of AI natural language processing.
Goertzel was recent quoted on Freddie McMahon’s blog:
I think virtual worlds are going to be absolutely critical to the development of Artificial General Intelligence.
Goertzel is a bit adamant – “Absolutely critical”. I’m equally adamant but on the flip side – AI is critical to the development of virtual worlds. Direct access to AI is one of the defining features of virtual worlds.
Defining feature of virtual worlds
AI is used all over the web; Google’s set of algorithims are probably the most used AI on the internet. We use them every time we search but we don’t necessarily interact with them. We enter a query and Google spits back a predetermined list of relevant sites that it’s AI most likely constructed days earlier. These algorithms are also modified based not on my input but mine and the input of hundreds of thousands or perhaps millions.
AI in virtual worlds however is commonly found in a one-on-one situation – we interact directly with it. Like Goertzel’s virtual parrots, Daden Limited‘s robotars, and the NPCs in The Electronic Sheep Company’s I Am Legend: Survival. It’s through that interaction that virtual worlds come alive. AI for the internet simply makes it more useful. Both forms of AI are powerful, but AI in virtual worlds gets my emotions involved, gets my blood going.
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