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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Open AI recently made ChatGPT 3.5 freely available to anyone on the web here. No doubt it's useful for various applications, but as noted last year, it remains comically confused about virtual worlds and avatars — even confusing my name with my avatar's name. But it's not just me! Ask ChatGPT, "Who is the SL…
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Given the so-so reception to the launch of Convai/Linden Lab's AI NPCs, here's a great reader comment from Lucas Weymann (previously), a retired tech executive who spends much of his retirement hanging out in Second Life — and thus has a uniquely smart perspective on how AI NPCs could help grow the SL user base:…
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Given the so-so reception to the launch of Convai/Linden Lab's AI NPCs, here's a great reader comment from Lucas Weymann (previously), a retired tech executive who spends much of his retirement hanging out in Second Life — and thus has a uniquely smart perspective on how AI NPCs could help grow the SL user base:…
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Similar to how Nettrice Gaskins was creating AI-based visual art years before Midjourney and such, adaptive music/sound artist Robert Thomas was leveraging machine learning last decade, including this amazing 2019 project for the LA Philharmonic: "Parag Mital made a browser which let [us] search through hundreds of terabytes of material, to be able to hear different…
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Linden Lab's AI-powered bot project from Convai was only announced last week, but some of these bots are already in-world, available to chat, tell stories, but not so much for flirting. Some of them are gathered sexily in Darcy's Clubhouse by the beach — click here to teleport. I just visited them last night and…
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Here's a fun watch to start the week: My chat with Social Autopoiesis, one of the very first AI-powered bots to run in Second Life… from 2007. And while Convai's new bots developed with Linden Lab promise to transform the virtual world, acting as helpers to confused users, it's worth remembering Social Autopoiesis was created…
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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…
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I blogged about AI-powered NPC conversations from startup Convai last year (see demo below), and today's there's news that Linden Lab will use this technology in Second Life: Convai has joined forces with industry giants such as Frost Giant Studios, Linden Lab, and Carbonated to integrate AI NPCs into their games. These collaborations underscore the…
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Lately I've been helping develop a very cool sci-fi action game (in my highly biased opinion!) which includes working with the creative director on putting together a presentation deck to show publishers and others. Inevitably we've been using Midjourney to create prototype images for the deck — which gave me a first-hand demonstration on the…
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See original image here Cajsa Lilliehook covers the best in virtual world screenshot art and digital painting Duraya creates such intriguing pictures, I had to ask her how she does it. It’s clear she combines Second Life screenshots with her own sketches, but I was curious if she also used AI and other methods. She…
Wagner James Au / New World Notes 