Project Natal – ‘Milo’ Artificial Intelligence
Written by Ender on June 5, 2009 · Filed under Games, Tech
We recently did a post about Microsoft’s new motion control system titled ‘Project Natal’. From what I’ve seen, it looks like it could be great fun to use because of being able to use your entire body rather than just remotes.
After delving a little further for information, I came across Peter Molyneux’s ‘Milo’. An artificial intelligence character that can interact with you through Natal. I have to say, I’m absolutely amazed from what I’ve seen as it’s not even 50% complete yet. But on the other hand, I’m a little freaked out by the potential of this new technology. But…….it’s genius!
It’s like Microsoft have got hold of the gaming timeline, folded it in half, and picked a technology years in the future. The potential is massive!
The fact that ‘Milo’ can recognise you, call you by your own name and fully interact seems a little to far fetched to be real. But it is.
Just remember that it’s still in the early stages of development, but from what I’ve read, ‘Milo’ understands when you tell a joke and he’ll smile!! If you don’t talk for a while then he’ll start doing things like looking around the screen, or taking things out of his pocket so he has something to do.
Fair enough, these kinds of things can be done through ‘simple’ programming, but it’s the way that he reacts with you that has me totally slack jawed.
Apparently he’s going to be a “Super Tamagochi” when fully complete. But will this be a bad thing in the long run? Will you have to talk to him everyday so he doesn’t get mad? Will you have to do activities with him everyday like fishing as seen in the video? Or will you simply be able to talk to him whenever you want without any regret. But if you talk to him with a sympathetic tone of voice or a sad look on your face, he’ll register this and probably ask you why?!
Another amazing thing is that, from the video, the women draws an image on a piece of paper, holds it up to ‘Natal’, and Milo reaches for the paper and produces his own piece of paper in the virtual world and knows what colour pen you’ve used!!!!
I really can’t do it justice by talking about it or without even experiencing ‘Milo’s’ AI myself, so the best thing to do is to check out the video below for the demo of ‘Milo’. You really do have to see it to believe it. Of course, there will be a few of you out there who think this is nothing special and it’s all a farce, but nobody should deny that it has potential.
I’m very excited to see ‘Milo’ when he’s fully complete and (once I get an Xbox 360), interacting with an artificial intelligent being. If this is what AI, for the public is like, just imagine what we’re going to be reporting from E3 in 2020!!
From my point of view, this is the biggest technology news from the big guns from E3, and that’s the buzz coming from E3! Touché Microsoft and Peter Molyneux.
What are your views on ‘Milo’? Are you excited by this new technology? Not really bothered? Think it’s already been done before? Let us know.
UPDATE: The Project Natal release date and price have been announced, which means that we’re less than a year away from release and at quite an affordable price too, let us know what you think to these important factors of Microsoft’s Xbox 360 motion control system!
Via – IGN
That is absolutely stunning! That changes the whole landscape of gaming and computing – it’s even more than sci fi writers had dreamed was possible.´
Thanks for showing us.
Those were pretty much my thoughts too Mike.
Milo is just the result of a few months of development, it just really makes you wonder to what point this technology will have developed upon release and then a few years down the line once developers have really got to grips with it – very exciting times ahead I think for all types of gaming!
It is cool for sure,
Although I will wait until I see a demo with members of the general public before I get too excited. A great deal of this dialog could be achieved with a modified version of Eliza. Some of the other impressive tricks could be a combination of simple AI with scripting, for example he might be programmed to recognize the dominant color of any drawing he is given (not so hard) and comment on it every time he is shown a drawing. It would seem novel at first, but after the tenth time it would grow dull.
Nonetheless, even if ‘Milo’ is just a contraption of well known AI techniques coupled with scripting tricks, what is beautiful is the apparent level of immersion he is able to generate. No doubt this will help with developing complex interaction for story driven gaming.
By the way, anyone who says that this is more than science fiction writers have dreamed of has not been reading much in the last twenty years, or watching television for that matter. The ‘holo deck’ people !!!