Tag: virtual

Eddie is 4 years old and lives in Second Life

haley-j-oNo, I’m not talking about the average player in SL, but the Artificial Intelligence created at Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning Lab. Eddie is programmed to reason and to predict other people’s actions and has also passed a few reasoning tests. Eddie or really, Edd Hifeng, isn’t yet walking around in SL, but it’s possible to talk to him. When I tried to contact him in SL the other day, he wasn’t online so I couldn’t meet him “face-to-face”. Imagine meeting this new lifeform in a way, a first contact.

The researchers of the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute isn’t planning to leave little Eddie in the virtual world. They are working to bring him to us in RL. But first he’ll play in SL so he can grow and learn about how to be more like us. Eddie is part of a bigger project that Renselelaer is working on. It’s a holodec project like in the scifi series StarTrek. So our “first contact” might not be in Second Life, but in a holodec and a full size Eddie or someone else. The future awaits us and it looks really promising.

Rediscover SL

My journey through SL has been long and shaky. When I was a newbie, all blueeyed and amazed over everything I saw. I remember setting up goals about what I wanted to do in SL. I’ve done what I set out to do, and more. I’ve created clothes, built houses, bought land. I even discovered the live music scene and that was really cool. I don’t get out much in RL and SL gave me a chance to do that.

Then I started to loose interest in the virtual world. I think it was a combination of problems in RL and that a lot in SL got “old”. I had a lot of “been there, done that” and I also started to get irritated about a lot of things, the money fixation, the sex focus and the techical problems in SL. So I stayed out for long periods of time. Maybe got online every other week. Friends disappeared and that contributed to my lack of interest in the virtual world.

Then a while back, I got to think about what I used to like in SL when I still was all blueeyed and amazed, before all my problems began. I’ve decided to rediscover Second Life again. I’ll start a new journey, with fresh new eyes. Stop by at all the best places, listen to the best music and find new friends to hang out with. Apart from that I’ll decorate my house and stay close to the friends I have left.

When I come across the real jems of SL, I’ll write about it, take snapshots and post it here. I invite you, come and experience the new Second Life with me! The journey has just begun?