(This is written for Russell Davies’ Lyddle End 2050 project. The photos are all of models I made for it, and you can also see them as a set on Flickr).

We’ve lived through a lot of futures and most of them, we didn’t see coming. We’ve imagined many more, and I have a lot of [...]

Caught this tidbit about performative AI in an interview with Evolution Studios, while researching a piece for work this week:
Simon [Benson]: The AI is incredibly advanced. Its primary goal is to entertain the player rather than just turn laps.

Joseph Weizenbaum, the creator of Eliza, has died aged 85.
I like this tribute, and Mark Fraunfelder at Boing Boing also created a fitting one that marks the gulf between artificial and organic intelligence:
> Hello, I am Eliza.
* Hi
> How are you today.. What would you like to discuss?
* Joeseph Weizenbaum, the man that made you.
> [...]

Tale of Tales recetly conducted an interview with Simon Carless, of the ever-excellent GameSetWatch. He had something very sensible to say about current trends:
I think what we need is more personal games. Personal games may not have overarching stories, and may not necessarily have a message, and they may just be mindless and fun! But [...]

I found a couple of good posts on the AI article I did for GamaSutra, and both make similar points:
Aleks Krotoski raises this at the Guardian Games Blog:
Simulation of the human system surely comes from an understanding of underlying psychological knowledge. That’s why I’ve always thought psychologists would make the best games; they’re great at [...]

I am writing a follow up post or two to the AI article. This Idle Forums thread has a bit of it in there.

Gamasutra just published a piece by me on creepy AI behaviour, one of the subjects I presented on at BarCamp in February:
The valley has enjoyed widespread discussion in relation to the appearance of CGI humans over the past few years, and while thinking about it recently, the very worst moments of my social life flashed [...]