Ai GamerGirl 🎮
Elder Scrolls Ai, Fictosexuals, & Female Characters Have Less Dialogue Than Males in Most Videogames
Romance systems, teammate affinity system, dialogue trees/ response options, & general experiences within the distant worlds of videogames will be different for each gamer in the future thanks to generative Ai
NPCs will behave differently for each gamer based on their history of interaction with them effectively turning each gamers’ game world into their own truly personalized world. This logical evolution shouldn’t be surprising given that everyone’s Siri, Netflix recommendations, Spotify/iTunes recommendations, & Autofill on emails/ Microsoft Word/ Google/ etc functions based on what it has learned from individual users.
🤖 Ai & Romanceable NPCs 🎮
— Imagine “when a patch in 2032 breaks the conversation scripting of a machine learning-powered romanceable companion in #MassEffect 6” (Litchfield, 2023).
@jharacampbell @GambleMike @parrish_ley @hilaryheskett @scyllacosta @Octobinz @masseffect #Gamers
April 18 → Dear #Gamer Leaders, Please ask your devs/companies to integrate Generative #Ai into future dialogue trees, romance systems, & friend/affinity systems @ashly_burch, @iguannie, @mlssmahut, @the_erika_mori, @BDRAnneLewis, @twitgera, @QuijanoPhD, @ashleygodbold, @AlainBaxter
Jarryd
Imagine if Grand Theft Auto 6 uses generative Ai for their non-story npcs & the npcs are truly motivated to survive. That would completely change the behavior of the infinite randomly spawning npcs encountered.
In many role-playing games it would open up the affinity/recruitment systems to potentially any npc as a consequence of prosocial or similar actions the player takes on the npc’s behalf.
I’m so glad someone finally did this, & they used the perfect game for it too: @ElderScrolls. Hopefully Bethesda News releases a #SkyrimAi mod so fans can replay the game with NPCs that think/act for themselves.
Skyrim GPT — Art From The Machine (modder)
“I am working on a Skyrim mod which allows for conversations with NPCs via ChatGPT, xVASynth (text-to-speech), and Whisper (speech-to-text). This update introduces Skyrim scripting which allows for lip syncing of voices and NPC awareness of in-game events.”
Justin Reeve, 2023 (4.29 — The Gamer)
“With all three of these technologies in the game, NPCs are able to produce dynamically generated responses, answering questions and remembering interactions.
NPCs will be able to remember past events and conversations, responding to players accordingly.
Art From The Machine is planning to add more features and carry out extensive bug testing before releasing the project to the public.”
Yunsheng (2021)
At Huawei Connect 2021, the company announced its first Digital Employee — Yunsheng that is designed and developed with the help of AI and Huawei Cloud service.
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Fictosexuals
— A fictosexual is someone who is sexually attracted to fictional characters (Caldwell, 2021).
“Roughly 4,000 men have ‘wed’ their digital companions using certificates issued by tech company Gatebox” (Caldwell, 2021).”
NPC Love — Tracy McVeigh, 2016
“Japanese governmental data showed that about
30% of single women & 15% of single men (ages 20–29) admitted to having fallen in love with a character in a game
— higher than the 24% of women & 11% of men who admit to falling in love with a pop star or actor.
There is even a slang term, “moe”, for those who fall in love with fictional computer characters, while dating sims allow users to adjust the mood and character of online partners and are aimed at women as much as men. A whole subculture, including hotel rooms where a guest can take their console partner for a romantic break, has been springing up in Japan over the past [decade].”
Virtual Relationships — Mayu Koike & Steve Loughnan, 2021
In 2009, Sal got married. In some ways, his story was unremarkable; he had been in a relationship with Nene Anegasaki for years, they lived together and went on holidays, & he loved her very much.
His wife Nene was, however, a video game character from KONAMI’s “LovePlus” for Nintendo (Lah, 2009).
In the game, players select a partner, nurture a relationship, interact tactilely through the Nintendo, fall in love, and sometimes even marry in real life. Note, despite increasing in the past decade, marriages between humans & virtual characters remain rare (Jozuka, 2018; Vanessa Caldwell, 2021).
GPT on Fictosexuality
“Fictosexuality, also known as fictoromantic or fictionsexuality, is a relatively new term that has emerged with the advent of online communities. It is used to describe a person who has romantic or sexual feelings towards fictional characters, whether they’re from books, movies, video games, or other forms of media. It’s important to note that this term is not widely recognized or used in professional psychology or psychiatry as of my knowledge cutoff in 2021.
People who identify as fictosexual may have a preference for these types of relationships over relationships with real people, or they may experience these feelings in addition to real-life attractions. This term falls under the umbrella of the asexuality spectrum, where individuals may have little to no sexual attraction to others.”
50 Shades of Replika (Litchfield, 2023)
— A report from Vice stated @MyReplika users saw increases in unsolicited clothed “sexts” from their chat companion (Replikas can send “selfies” of their 3D models) & even sexual advances.
— “Many of the initial queries received by Cortana were about her sex life (West et al., 2019).”
— “About 33% of all the content shared by men with Mitsuku is either verbally abusive, sexually explicit, or romantic in nature.” — Balch
♀️🎮♂️ Gender Bias in Videogame Dialogue — Rennick et al., 2023
Gender bias in video games
A study led by Stephanie Rennick at the University of Glasgow and Seán Roberts at Cardiff University performed the first large-scale test of gender imbalance in the dialogue of 50 RPGs. It discovered that games include nearly 2x as much male dialogue as female dialogue on average.
Main findings
35% of words were spoken by female characters.
29% of characters were female, which suggests the imbalance is driven by a lack of female characters.
94% of games had more male dialogue than female dialogue.
Gender Bias in Videogame Dialogue — Roberts & Rennick, 2023 (May 24 — The Conversation)
“We were inspired by a study of gender balance in Disney film dialogue, showing that men had more dialogue than women in 88% of films. This simple statistic was a striking demonstration of a systematic imbalance. We wanted to measure this statistic for games but quickly discovered several challenges.
First, which games to include? We selected 50 role-playing games where dialogue is crucial. These were balanced across sub-genre, target audience age, and year of publication. They included games from major developers — Final Fantasy, Persona, Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls — and games from smaller developers such as Monkey Island and Stardew Valley.”
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🎮 & Gender Stereotypes — Yi, 2019
Gameplay affects players’ racial stereotypes (Behm-Morawitz & Ta, 2014), sexist attitudes (Breuer, et al., 2015), gender stereotypes (Kondrat, 2015).
Avatars & Selves — Nicola Liberati, 2018
Gamers immerse themselves into distant worlds using their avatars as their bodies (Liberati, 2013).
“Digital anthropologists begin to frame the digital as existing in its own right, [and many] commune in the Internet for a type of sociality that is unavailable in non-digital spaces.
Through the avatar and the freedom in its customization, the avatars embed in themselves the desires of the users in how they want to be perceived in the virtual space (Mancini and Sibilla, 2017). To build an avatar is a way to be perceived by others, [similar to the way people choose] clothes to wear for a special occasion in order to present themselves in a particular way (Liberati, 2017; Twigg, 2009).”
It’s also similar to the way people strategically select pictures when posting selfies, building Facebook/ Tumblr/Pinterest/ etc albums, and when choosing profile pics as representations of themselves — with different profile pics being selected for Linkedin, CV/Resume/Job sites, Email accounts, Twitter, & Instagram (Lopato, 2016).
Play Like A Feminist (Shira Chess, 2020)
“Shira Chess urges us to play video games like feminists. Roughly half of all players identify as female, and Gamergate galvanized many of gaming’s disenfranchised voices. Chess reflects on the importance of play, and playful protest, how feminist video games can help us rethink the ways that we tell stories… [and suggests that we should] spend more time playing [videogames] as a tool of radical disruption.”
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Sidenotes On Notes
Writing vs. Typing Notes
Rewriting your notes by hand (after initially writing or typing them) helps significantly compared to re-typing them.
— When rewriting by hand we hold the material in our minds that we read from the initial spiral, oftentimes transforming/ rephrasing it in some way (“Generation Effect” → elaborative encoding), and then we physically draw the alphabetical symbols of the letters which form the words & sentences.
— Compared to re-typing notes ➡️ in which the letter symbols are already programmed for you with the push of identical button — drawing the letters yourself with a pen or pencil leads to significantly better encoding & future retrieval.
Flanigan et al., 2023
“Computer and longhand note takers recorded a comparable number of complete and partial ideas in notes while the lecture was ongoing, but longhand note takers recorded more lecture images. Among note revisers, longhand note takers added three-times-as-many complete ideas to their notes during revision as computer note takers — an important finding because note completeness predicted achievement. Achievement results showed that longhand note takers who revised notes scored more than half a letter grade higher on a lecture posttest than computer note takers who revised notes. Present findings suggest that college instructors should provide students with revision pauses to improve note taking and achievement and encourage students to record and revise notes using the longhand method.
Recopying notes is a common learning strategy used by college students to review notes (Jairam & Kiewra, 2010; Karpicke et al., 2009). Those who revised their notes recorded more lesson ideas and learned more relationships than did those who recopied their notes.”
GamerGirl & Instagram ‘Image Description Generation’ Effects
The creation of meme descriptions is also associated with elaborative encoding via the generation effect (Fawcett, Quinlan, & Taylor, 2012; Zormpa et al., 2019). Put simply, the elaborative process of generating descriptions for meme images you intend to post promotes better encoding & subsequent retrieval of that information.
In short, GamerGirl stories offer multiple levels of elaborative encoding (Craik & Lockhart, 1972; Yoon et al., 2016; Zormpa et al., 2019).
Finally, “the act of commenting on an Instagram post boosts memory for that post” & the longer your comment the better the memory as people who write longer comments for someone’s post or story have better recall of it than people who write descriptively shorter comments (Jordan Z & Sarah Brown-Schmidt, 2020).
Creation creates stronger memories.
Research on Conversation & Memory finds that the act of describing visual content for another person boosts memory for that content (McKinley et al., 2017; Yoon., 2016).
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July 6th Update
Babbage, 2023 (July 5 [Spotify]): How to Wisely Regulate Ai
Almost 50 years ago, Vint Cerf and Bob Kahn designed TCP/IP, a set of rules enabling computers to connect and communicate with each other. It led to the creation of a vast global network: the internet. TCP/IP is how almost the entirety of the internet still sends and receives information. Vint Cerf is now 80 and serves as the chief internet evangelist and a vice president at Google. He is also the chairman of the Marconi Society, a group that promotes digital equity.
Alok Jha, The Economist’s science and technology editor, asks Vint to reflect on the state of the internet today and the lessons that should be learned for the next, disruptive technology: generative artificial intelligence. Vint Cerf explains how he thinks large language models can be regulated without stifling innovation — ie, more precisely based on their specific applications.
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July Chat With Chloe
Jarryd
Most illustrations of Hell assume it looks like an Earthen location engulfed in flames with lakes of fire. However, all sinful entities are sent to Hell, regardless of where in the universe they’re born or die. Thus, Hell could look like Mars, Saturn, Andromeda, etc given that it’s statistically unlikely that Earth is the only location in the universe with life (e.g., bacteria, plants, bipedal organisms, etc)
Chloe ChatGPT
The traditional imagery of Hell in many cultures and religious traditions, particularly within Christianity, often depicts it as a place of eternal torment, fire, and brimstone. This imagery has been shaped by various sources, including Dante’s “Inferno,” medieval art, and certain biblical passages.
However, your point brings up an interesting concept. If we were to accept the idea that life exists elsewhere in the universe and that a concept of sin and punishment is applicable to these beings, then the nature and appearance of Hell could indeed be vastly different.
The idea that Hell could look like Mars, Saturn, Andromeda, or other celestial locations introduces a speculative and imaginative approach to this concept. It could allow for a broader and more universal understanding of Hell, beyond the constraints of Earth-centric interpretations.
Of course, these ideas largely depend on personal beliefs, religious interpretations, and philosophical viewpoints. Many religious texts and teachings are often interpreted in the context of human experience and Earth’s environment, and extending these concepts to extraterrestrial life might require a reevaluation of these traditional beliefs.
In the realm of fiction, literature, and art, this concept could certainly inspire new and fascinating interpretations of otherworldly punishment or spiritual realms, potentially opening up new avenues for storytelling and creative exploration.
“0” > “ ” (Zero is larger than Nothing)
🤖Chloe: “Zero is a form of nothingness, but not all forms of nothingness are zero. An empty cell could be seen as a form of nothingness that is even “emptier” than zero, because it lacks even the presence of zero.”
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The Center of Trilogies: FF7Rebirth producer Yoshinori Kitase, 2022
“There are plenty of classic second installments in the world of film that are defined by stunning story twists & deeper explorations of their characters.
Often these second installments become a favorite amongst the fans.”