AI 45: Demo Virtual Worlds for US $60k

Disney is developing virtual worlds that cost millions of dollars instead of hundreds of millions.

“Most people either need to sell [a virtual world] internally or need something to show investors or sponsors that will fund the development, which is usually a costly process,” explained Metaversatility Founder and CEO Peter Haik.

“We are filling that gap with a new service offering of getting a standalone virtual world up in 6-to-8 weeks on a more modest budget--between $40,000 and $60,000.”

The demo worlds are built on the Multiverse platform, and designed with standard tools and practices. If the project is picked up, the assets created for the demo can then be transferred to the final build and vice versa.
“Since it’s based on the professional tools and 3D models, they can use assets they already have,” said Haik. “Maybe building plans or other content they’ve created, because 3D is a pretty common thing. We can use some of the content, and any content we create for these worlds can be portable to other worlds because they are standard 3D models.”

AI 44: Bartle attacks traditional academia for not embracing Virtual Worlds

Richard Bartle, MUD co-creator, criticizes universities who are resistant to change — while 'modern' universities (ones who developed from polytechnics or institutes, at least in the UK) are more willing to lead the way with creative courses, older institutions are less likely to follow suit.

Bartle received a Ph.D. in artificial intelligence from the University of Essex, which is where he created MUD along with Roy Trubshaw, in 1978.

He lectured at Essex until 1987, when he left to work full time on MUD (known as MUD2 in its present version). Recently he has returned to the university as a part-time professor and principal teaching fellow in the Department of Computing and Electronic Systems, supervising courses on computer game design as part of the department's degree course on computer game development.

In 2003, he wrote Designing Virtual Worlds, a book about the history, ethics, structure, and technology of massively multiplayer games.

Bartle is also a contributing editor to Terra Nova, a collaborative blog that deals with virtual world issues.

AI 43: Virtual Worlds are growing fast as the foundation for Web 4.0 gains traction

Gary Hayes, Director of the Laboratory for Advanced Media Production in Sydney, has produced a short video that covers 50 virtual worlds that do not include gaming worlds.

This is worth watching as it shows the way Virtual Worlds are evolving that already are attracting 300 million people worldwide.

Just remember these Virtual Worlds cannot be accessed by search-engines and are the foundation to Web 4.0 Artificial Intelligence Complementing Humans.

Please go to link http://virtualworlds.nmc.org/2008/08/06/50-virtual-worlds/

AI 42: Study says 30% of US army to be robots by 2020; in reality bots could outnumber solders by 2012

Doug Few and Bill Smart of Washington University have produced a new report that states by 2020, robots could well account for 30 per cent of the US army. They have under estimated the probable outcome by a long way!

Bill Smart says the term robot' means:

"When the military says 'robot' they mean everything from self-driving trucks up to what you would conventionally think of as a robot. You would more accurately call them autonomous systems rather than robots."

The pair also go on to say that while robot use will increase, fully autonomous systems would not use weapons: "It's a chain of command thing. You don't want to give autonomy to a weapons delivery system," said Smart

"You want to have a human hit the button," says Smart. "You don't want the robot to make the wrong decision. You want to have a human to make all of the important decisions."

This study does not factor in the notion of software ai agents where each one is a subject matter expert. If this happens the number of bots will out number the number of solders by 2012.

The picture shows an existing robotic dog that could be connected to the military cloud and used to converse with people through links with ai agents covering any subject. The technology is readily available today – it simply needs the military to be more open minded about AI scenarios that can be delivered fast.

AI 41: AI research states ‘control the robots, control the world’

University of Sheffield's Professor Noel Sharkey, a leading expert in Artificial Intelligence has suggested that the people that control the robots will control the world in the 21st century.

This was a conclusion from a report commissioned by Warner to mark the DVD release of Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles. The report concluded that robots probably won't take over the world, but they will be the tools for the people who do.

"The robots themselves will not be super-intelligent and will not be motivated to take over themselves, but those who control the robots will control society," he said.

"But this report, based on existing research and current technological developments, suggests that robots will play a much bigger role in society … than previously anticipated”.

AI 40 Leading expert says virtual worlds are critical to AI

Ben Goertzel (refer to AI 39) says,

‘I think virtual worlds are going to be absolutely critical to the development of Artificial General Intelligence.’

As well as

‘Right now connecting AI’s to virtual worlds is probably the best way to get an AI to have a general human-like embodied experience.’

AI 39 Leading expert says Artificial General Intelligence will not be achieved by mimicking the brain

Ben Goertzel is a noted scientist, author, futurist and pioneer in the field of Artificial Intelligence.

Ben states that the human mind does not qualify as a completely ‘General Intelligence’ but lies somewhere on the spectrum between Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) on one end and ‘Narrow AI’ on the other. Therefore, his studies have confirmed our own work that black-box AI will not deliver AGI by mimicking the workings of the human brain (please refer to AI 10).

Ben’s studies show how our brains fool us into believing that we understand our actions and decisions when we don’t. This is one of his reasons to why modelling an AI too closely on the human brain might make it too, vulnerable to false notions.

AI 38 Omnicom likely to use virtual worlds for health services

The giant agency Omnicom believes virtual worlds are no longer a niche play, but have become a global category defined by hundreds of millions of users in reach.

Omnicom have already taken a major stake in the digital agency Millions of Us that specializes in virtual worlds. (Please refer to AI 35 for further details).

The Omnicom investment for an undisclosed amount was made by Diversified Agency Services, which is a unit of Omnicom Group.

Diversified Agency Services (DAS) contains an influential global healthcare franchise with six healthcare communications companies ranked in the top 25.

It is inevitable that Omnicom will start to fuse virtual worlds with health services.

AI 37: Researchers turn to Virtual World to Conduct Studies

The Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas The Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas CThe Virtual World is attracting heath researches.

Health care researchers also are starting to use Virtual Worlds for research, education and data collection.

Two recent initiatives cover chronic illnesses schizophrenia and obesity.

Peter Yellowlees, a psychiatrist at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, created a "virtual psychosis" environment on the Second Life Web site to help students and health care professionals understand the types of hallucinations that people with schizophrenia and other mental disorders have.

The University of Houston's Texas Obesity Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).
Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).
Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).
Research Center plans to recruit 500 participants from different countries for an obesity study that will reward users' online characters, or avatars, for healthy dietary habits and increased physical activity. Participants will be monitored online and will report their weight and activity to help researchers determine if participating in the virtual world encourages individuals to lose weight and practice healthy behaviours themselves.

"What we're seeing in Second Life is the beginning of serious interest on the part of health care professionals," stated John Lester, Boston operations director for Linden Lab.

Research is just one area of health attracted to Virtual Worlds (please refer to AI 33 and AI 34).

AI 36: Gartner says virtual worlds are to grow exponentially

By 2012, Gartner estimates that 70 per cent of organisations will have established their own private virtual worlds and predicts that these internal worlds will have greater success due to lower expectations, clearer objectives and better constraints."

Gartner also believe that “80 percent of active Internet users (and Fortune 500 companies) will have a ‘second life’, but not necessarily in Second Life” by 2011.

Health is likely to be a major player in the Virtual Worlds (refer to AI 33 and AI 34).