Ah, the days of E3 2009. Where the Microsoft Kinect (then Project Natal) was still new, wondrous, and offered a world of possibilities. Back then, one of the more interesting demos was of Milo, an AI boy you could interact with like a real human. Since then, nary a peep has been heard about Milo from his creator, Peter Molyneux (Fable, Populous).
Until now.
Molyneux whipped out Milo at his TED talk earlier this year and it looks a bit more fleshed out as a “game,” as opposed to merely a tech demo. Apparently his goal was to create an environment and interface where humans can interact with an evolving AI as if it was human. No input devices needed, just a Kinect and your bad self.
If you’re time-starved, you can skip to about 9 minutes where the interesting interactions take place. Molyneux reveals that Milo’s AI will “live in the cloud” and evolve from various peoples’ playthroughs. It has the promise of being truly revolutionary stuff for the video game/interactive entertainment industry. Though the Milo demo is ultimately unexciting in subject matter (Milo’s biggest problem is adjusting to a move from England to New England), it’s leagues more interesting than pantomiming through Wii Sports knock-offs.
Well, at least until Milo turns into Skynet and conquers us all.
