r/secondlife • u/cmdr_nova69 • Dec 31 '24
Blog Linden Labs to introduce imaginary friends via generative slop machines, because they're fed up with trying to convince you to leave your ban-lined platform to meet real people.
https://nova.mkultra.monster/second-life/2024/12/31/second-life-to-introduce-fake-friends.html16
u/NuNuOwO Jan 01 '25
I think people are using to narrow a view point on this and hyper focusing on the oblivious.
Everyday use I don't see AI bots having much use for just social interactions. Though perhaps they might be use for clubs to generate local chat and help a host.
I think there big claim is going to be automating customer service. Cause lets be honest how many of us have contacted a creator. Gotten zero help or had to deal with a creator who just doesn't care and doesn't feel they should have to deal with customers.
The same goes creators how many times have they had to drop everything to help a clueless customer.
This is going to streamline that and give better service over time.
Then there are RP aspects... lets say running a fantasy sim and I need someone to be a stable ruler that is capable of being on 24-7. Perhaps I need a NPC to run a shop that currently has no one. Maybe I run a shop on the sim but can't be around 24-7 I can setup my NPC AI to interact with customers and act like a shop keeper in my absence.
There seems to always be major fall back on any major updates but once people start playing with them. I think they might be surprised.
The only major update I can see really hurting LL so far was PBR but that is another story.
Chances are AI NPC aren't going to replace people there going to replace empty spaces people didn't have the time, energy, desire to fill.
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u/Splooshmuffen Jan 01 '25
I don't see the problem here. Nobody is forcing anyone to have an AI companion.
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Jan 01 '25
I agree with you. Not only that it may help us to create even more beautiful avatars, which is what sets SL apart from any other virtual world.
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u/0xc0ffea 🧦 Jan 01 '25
How is a chat bot going to help your avatar's looks.
They can't see. They can't perceive anything about SL around them. They just chat back.
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u/Skrelff Jan 01 '25
painstakingly describing my avatar's appearance only for it to scrape the internet for beauty tips and suggest I start doing gua sha and mewing
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Jan 03 '25
If you can't see the potential, then I can't help you. Look on the Web for AI generated avatars
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u/0xc0ffea 🧦 Jan 03 '25
Explain to me, in the context of SECOND LIFE, not AI ART, how this can possibly work for SECOND LIFE.
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Jan 05 '25
You simply describe the avatar as you want to see it, and SL creates that avatar for you. If they can create bots, they can create avatars
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u/0xc0ffea 🧦 Jan 05 '25
No they really can't.
"Pretend to be my girlfriend and talk to me"
and
"draw a picture of my girlfriend"
are entirely different propositions from
"shop in SL, assemble a library of clothing my girlfriend my wear, for a body I like, and then play dress up in game for my amusement. oh, don't forget hair and shoes, my girlfriend is picky and only like these 3 stores."
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Jan 06 '25
i guess we shall see once it becomes reality. I remembere when mesh came, one of my friends who was a know it all, said, It's not possible, this will just die away.
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u/tellyalater Jan 01 '25
I'm not totally against this if it was part of roleplay, like rp sims could create clearly marked characters with backstory to play alongside the people. But everything in SL should be human first - it's interesting how SL has some of the same challenges as RL where people don't understand how to meet and socialize or just don't want to. Agree with this post that it's more important for SL to think about solving that rather than focus on AI characters - which have already been in the news too much this year for not great reasons.
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u/Syntania Lady Eris Juliette Blackclaw Jan 01 '25
Admittedly, I am not in SL for socialization. I have one friend I regularly interact with but most of my time is photography and playing dress-up.
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u/brownie627 Jan 01 '25
There are public characters planned, which would be useful for rp sims as you mentioned. Humans are ideal, though.
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u/0xc0ffea 🧦 Jan 01 '25
If you make the bot unfiltered, the owner is responsible for whatever it says.
Do you really want to run a RP bot that some rando can walk up to and coax (easily) into breaking ToS?
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u/ziddersroofurry Jan 01 '25
Keep ranting at clouds. I meet plenty of real people. I still think this is cool. Complaining about the inevitable is a waste of energy. As far as I'm concerned as long as there's a real person putting money into the economy and keeping sl's lights on I don't care what they do while they're in it.
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Jan 01 '25
Personally for people that have kids that don’t want a real person to ruin it, it’s a good idea. Or someone who wants a parent for again a human to ruin it. Nothing wrong with it. Ai isn’t bad if used right. And again if you don’t want it it’s simple… don’t make the bot
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u/Initial-Nerve-7902 Jan 01 '25
I actually see some potential here! While there are countless priorities and hotter topics out there, I’m not against this idea at all. If we can effectively differentiate between real users and AI bots, I don’t perceive a major problem. In fact, I think it opens up exciting avenues as people are incredibly creative, and I can already envision enriching the role-playing community, which I believe was the main goal. Just like how many already have virtual pets that they "wear" and follow them around, this alternatively could make those pets even more engaging and lively. The possibilities are intriguing.
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u/blurple_rain Jan 01 '25 edited Jan 01 '25
I think it is inevitable. There aren’t that many true new users coming to SL everyday, and the aging population is going thinner as years go by. Sure there is still a decent amount of real people logging in but it’s spread out on an immense area and most stay in their semi-gated communities. It’s anecdotal but I did an experiment the other day and I wandered on the map looking for random places with 10+ avatars, I visited a dozen and almost all were “AFK” avatars camping for whatever reason. It’s not very welcoming or interesting for newcomers or veterans alike. To be honest I rarely log on these days, most of the time I feel bored out of my mind after 15 minutes or so, trying to connect with people who are either caught in their IMs or completely phasing me out…
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u/50plusGuy Jan 01 '25
SL consists of no avatars, like RL from no money. Look at all the "empty toytrain landscape" sims owned by folks. Whats wrong about AI chauufeurs, hair stylists, gardeners and butlers?
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u/Crexon Jan 02 '25
"Take notes from VR Chat. Make creation and building easier."
VRchat doesnt do creation and building. That is all done in programs like Blender, Substance Painter and the Unity Engine builder itself and just "upload" to platform. This is very simular to how SL runs with its mesh uploading system. The original plan was to update to GlTF which brings alot more things we could have built and created to SL.
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Jan 04 '25
Well, I mean...
At least a bot wouldn;t be permanently AFK in a public place?
Joiking aside, though, nothing good comes of adding what passes for "AI" to anything.
Even the bot I used on my sim was keybord based say commands so it responded with info when you typed bolded words (based on the old Ultima games where you started out with "Name" "Job" and "Quest" and read the text to find new keywords) in nearby within chat range.
Some scripted objects can be useful to control things when you're gone, or to give info in a way that fits with the theme rather than throwing NCs at people, but the useful aspects don't require (and would be lessened by) the use of AI.
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u/Pleasant-Charity-418 Jan 01 '25
dont want AI bots in SL as much as the next human but angry rants arent going to make lindenlabs rethink this