Wagner James Au / New World Notes

Courtesy Convai,the AI company partnering with Linden Lab to bring helpful NPC guides for new Second Life uers, here's an in-world demo of Convai bots in action.

It's an early prototype demo, so I don't want to judge too harshly, but I think Convai's "intelligent bots" will need to be deployed much differently to have a substantial impact on new user retention. For starters:

• Most new new users quit during download/installation, so these bots would actually need to be part of the website/set-up process (and maybe they will).
• Second Life is already crawling with bots, most them not as intelligent as what Convai is showing off here — but that's also trained active users to generally avoid all bots. (So I'm not seeing a scenario where a Convai bot acts like someone's wingman at a nightclub, like the video suggests.)
• Second Life is inherently and at its most valuable as a social space with other live human people, so I strongly believe there needs to be a clear demarcation between Convai bots and human-driven avatars. That's not evident here, except perhaps for the android-looking bots. (But then again, many human SLers have android avatars.)

Just as key: Will Second Life's content creator community also get to play around with Convai's platform? No word there (unless I missed it). I've reached out to Linden Lab to check on that.

Anyway, those are just my initial thoughts to this very early demo. Looking forward to how this project evolves.

More feature details from the official announcement and a video demo by Linden Lab's Brad Oberwager:

Growing up being a resident @SecondLife, we're excited to announce our partnership with this pioneering virtual world to give it even more magic.

According to Brad Oberwager, Exec Chair of @LindenLab, "… these AI characters can not only ease the learning curve for new users… pic.twitter.com/mArcATfRoz

— Convai (@convaitech) March 19, 2024

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

"We're excited to partner with Convai to bring its conversational AI into Second Life to add new and exciting engagement experiences to our community," says Brad Oberwager, chairman of Linden Lab. "This partnership is just the latest example of our ongoing commitment to innovation in virtual worlds as Second Life has been a pioneer and leader in the establishment of digital economies, cultures, and communities. These AI characters can not only ease the learning curve for new users by providing necessary information, but also help entertain and engage them by giving them a tour of the virtual world, carrying out different actions based on conversation, and connecting them with other players and characters.”

The key new features and updates to Convai include:

Convai Connect: This new feature will mitigate the risks of potential runaway costs in having real-time AI-based character interactions within games. Convai Connect seamlessly enables end users to use their Convai account to play the developers' game. This approach eliminates the need for developers to bear upfront licensing fees or worry about unpredictable expenses. Furthermore, Convai incentivizes developers by sharing revenue when users upgrade to a paid subscription through their game.

Narrative Design: This feature enables game developers and narrative designers with more control over their AI characters. It enables characters with agency and purpose, enabling them to drive conversations and actions toward a predetermined set of outcomes while keeping the open-ended generative nature and fostering emergent actions and behaviors.

Long-Term Character Memory: Enables game characters to remember end users, fostering deeper, personalized relationships. Characters can now have memories with gamers based on prior conversations and experiences, recall player preferences and choices, and adapt to players’ style for a truly unique experience.

Multilingual Support: Addressing global language diversity, this feature is pivotal for the widespread adoption of human-like AI systems in games and digital human applications. Currently supporting 21 languages, Convai is committed to expanding its linguistic repertoire, ensuring more inclusive and accessible AI interactions across different cultures and regions.

Modding Framework: Enables studios to easily integrate AI-driven NPCs into their existing titles to drive further engagement and retention. Convai intends to work closely with both AAA and indie titles to let gamers engage with both known and new characters in a deeper manner.

Test Framework: Brings a full set of test suites that enables designers and developers to robustly test AI NPC characters to ensure they stay within the intended paradigm. This early access feature enables the creation of character-specific test sets through a feedback mechanism, allowing for comprehensive testing across different character versions. It focuses on identifying how updates affect character behavior, particularly in edge cases, ensuring consistency with the game's lore and mitigating unintended knowledge disclosure.

With Convai's technology, developers can swiftly modify a character's backstory, personality, and knowledge, bringing to life NPCs that respond uniquely and adapt to their surroundings. This can be done through the user-friendly playground or programmatically via the API. Within minutes, creators can witness their characters responding in their unique style while embodying a spatially aware NPC capable of performing a wide array of actions, offering unparalleled dynamic conversation.

More about it on Convai.com.