Project Milo: XBox AI a Reality! (VIDEO)

It's a fact that technologies simply don't succeed and develop unless they penetrate the mass market or kill people (but preferably not both).  Now Lionhead studios are working to make Spielberg's AI a reality, developing a virtual child to download to your XBox 360 - meaning that there's a potential army of thirty million networked "Milo"s.  In other words, Skynet is now a certainty.

Interaction with the virtual kid is a flagship application for Microsoft's new "Project Natal", so called because "webcam" doesn't sound sexy enough.  It's a Wii without the -mote, designed to let players interact with games without any controller at all.  According to an E3 demonstration video Milo can recognize people, expressions, understand speech, detect motion and even scan and interact with real items (creating virtual versions for his own digital world).

Of course there are a couple of caveats: the first is that this isn't just E3, the self-congratulatothon where companies could unveil an interactive toilet roll to massive applause, but this is Peter Molyneux - the man known for developing pretty good games but hyping each and every one as a Holy Grail dispensing a neverending supply ofcancer-curing champagne.  The demonstration was recorded, not interactive, many of Milo's responses sounded very ELIZA- ish, and the actual in-game physical activities would embarrass a Wii shovelware title.

The second problem is even more terrifying: what if it actually works?  What if we really are downloading intelligent software to be trained by no-one but the average XBox 360 user?  The day won't be far off when Skynet does exterminate us all with metallic robo-killers.

Posted by Luke McKinney.

Milo http://kotaku.com/5274554/molyneuxs-milo-brings-a-virtual-child-to-the-xbox-360

Project Natal http://www.xbox.com/en-US/live/projectnatal/

Comments

[alan]

ARE. YOU. SERIOUS? ever heard of a plug socket? its fun to unplug things. try it. stops them from working.....

[EvilCosmicMonkeyfrom Knoxville]

Ah - ha. Here we go again. The sensationalism of AIs running amok, creating rebellious robot soldiers who are going to kill us in our sleep or enslave us or make us into Borgs.

I call it " Frankenstein Syndrome ". Yet AIs are an inevitability that we should get used to. Some 20 years ago, a space probe with a certain amount of AI flew past Neptune & took wonderful video before heading out of the Solar System forever.
Robots don't kill - People with robots & AIs do. ;-}

[Free Xbox 360]

I really hope Xbox nail this because it has the potential to be one of the leading inventions of this century. And it would be pretty cool to have aswell, because the games that could use this functionality will be pretty vast I would imagine. Like playing NFL where you be the player in your room (although you still may need controller assistance for this)

[Free Xbox 360]

I highly doubt the killer robot thing, and I hope that AI moves a bit more quickly, when you think of all the advances that have been made I think that we're slowing down because of fears like that!

[dvd ripper]

Completely I share your opinion. In it something is and it is excellent idea.