Wagner James Au / New World Notes
Author, strategist, virtual world reporter
recent posts
- Welcome to New World Notes’ 2006-2025 Archive!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
- Top Five Posts Including: Huge Rec Room Layoff & Meta Boots Neal Stephenson Off Facebook (Briefly)
- Four Glorious Second Life Sims to Explore — After Watching Sabina Valeska’s Machinima Tributes to Them!
- Virtual World Usage Stats from S&P Global Market Intelligence — Plus VRChat & Second Life Specifics!
about
Category: AI
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Originally published on my Patreon here The most fascinating story about next gen AI in technology may not be about DeepSeek or whatever OpenAI is announcing, but reside in a 21 year old metaverse platform which has something no LLM can boast about: A simulated virtual world with terabytes of meta-tagged data constantly evolving. That's…
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Jeffrey Berg, the artist and technologist who became famous as the Metaverse artist known as "AM Radio" – a Second Life avatar who created profoundly surreal and poignant immersive installations like "The Faraway" — has lately been experimenting with integrating his work with gen AI platforms. Watch above, where one of his paintings (reminiscent of The Faraway) is…
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Join my Patreon for free to read first: My in-depth conversation with Philip Rosedale and Brad Oberwager on the challenges of bringing AI-powered NPCs into Second Life. Or I should say, adding next gen AI-powered NPCs, because as Brad notes, "the horse has been out of the barn" for years. But the promise and peril…
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If you want a glimpse of how AI/LLM technology might be used to bring new users into the virtual world, check out Ask Narrator, a new-ish feature to Crack Den, the long-running role-playing MMO built in SL: Click here to teleport, then get the HUD on the nearby table. "This feature is more than just…
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Coming January 31 (at least in the US) in the acclaimed indie movie Love Me, Kristen Stewart and Steven Yeun are a sentient buoy and satellite (respectively) who meet, fall in love, and re-create themselves as human avatars who live out the end of humanity together. The trailer at least looks pretty powerful, though I'm…
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Linden Lab just Alpha launched an AI/NPC character builder for Premium Plus Second Life users in collaboration with Convai, the startup that tested out some NPCs in SL earlier this year (to somewhat dubious if comical results). Now they're rolling out an entire toolkit: The Character Designer provides a solid foundation for immersive roleplay, offering…
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Remember Teal Aurelia's Second Life-based machinima promoting real life pop singer SEMINA, which led to a radio station picking up the song? Here's Teal's behind-the-scenes video, showing how she manually, painstakingly integrates SL footage with her post-production editing and artistry. On her social media, Teal's bio reads: "I make videos. I don't use any AI."…
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Brendan "PLAYERUNKNOWN" Greene wasn't satisfied with lead developing PUBG where you fight other players in a small landscape, so he put together a team to create an entire virtual world engine dubbed "Melba" you can check out right now: Preface: Undiscovered World is an immersive tech demo showcasing Melba, PLAYERUNKNOWN Productions' groundbreaking technology generating Earth-scale world.…
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The reader conversation around creating an AI-driven experience that improves Second Life new user retention continues. Just please, writes, Zane Zimer, no SL bot like Clippy, the intrusive, unhelpful "assistant": Microsoft's Clippy is still a point of jest, all these years later. A 'character' is not the answer. Simple, intuitive, perhaps even guided, viewer help…
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In our latest post about improving Second Life's first-time user experience, longtime reader/retired tech exec Luther Weymann details how AI might help with that: AI bots are assigned to each new user. Read the IP address; if the new user is using it for the first time, they cannot disconnect the AI bot until it…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 