This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.
Singing Ribbons is
a new art installation by Matthew Maxwell for the iPhone generation. A
series of paintings consisting of bold stripes of colour can be scanned
by a special mobile app that converts each stripe into notes sung by a
soprano.
Really,
it's an awesome concept. On a basic level, it's a great form of
interactive art. The works come alive with what you bring to the
gallery, and the results leave with you. We are clearly far to prone to
forgetfulness to simply remember the exhibit.
From
a technological perspective, it takes the idea behind QR codes (Those
'square barcodes' that most smartphones these days can read), and
explores it in a refreshing way. It's no surprise that Mr Maxwell works
in software, but has an education in fine art.
Beyond that, I think it's an interesting demonstration of Synaesthesia, though that may not be intentional.
What's
that? Synaesthesia is a mental condition that switches up the wiring in
your brain when recalling emotions and senses. Normally when we see,
for example, the colour green, our brains go through a subconscious
process of acknowledging what colour it is, using the 'correct' part of
the brain to do so.
For
a 'synaesthete', they may instead start smelling fried bacon or hear
the sound of a tuba, as their brain tries to use an area that's meant to
process a different sense.
In
practice, the most common form of synaesthesia are people feeling that
letters and numbers have inherent colours. What's more, only 1 in 2000
are likely to be synaesthetes. But that's not as romantic or exciting to
think about.
Drug
use (I won't say which ones, though you could probably guess) is often
known to induce synaesthesia, often a kind where sounds trigger colours,
or touch triggers sounds. Unsurprisingly, this is a lot closer to
artistic representations.
The
bars that make up each piece in Singing Ribbons reflect the decorations
on army generals. What would be a meaningless pattern of colours to a
layperson has a set of understandable rules and meanings to someone in
the know. Just like how a synaesthete could feel another meaning to a
set of apparently arbitrary letters.
Singing
Ribbons isn't the only example of interactive art, or in using
technology as a medium. Across the history of video games, there's a
host of titles that take the art appreciation experience to your living
room.
Once
described as 'art games', they cause many debates over if games are
inherently art, or if only this genre of subversive and abstract titles
qualify. Many have taken to describing them as 'un-games', though that's
not always appropriate either.
Rez
is the classic example. Released way back in 2002 for the Sega
Dreamcast and Playstation 2 (and since re-released on Xbox Live), it is
directed by Tetsuya Mizuguchi.
Across much of Mizuguchi's work, he has a personal fascination with sound design in games. He designed Rez as a representation of Synaesthesia, and in reference to the Bauhaus art of Wassily Kandinsky.
Even
though it's a video game in a very traditional sense, enjoying it need
not be about getting high scores. There's a mode that lets you just
enjoy the game without fear of failure.
More recently, the present Indie scene has had a revival of games that are much closer to the idea of the 'un-game'. Dear Esther
went from a free modification of an existing game in 2008 to a
complete, priced title in February 2012. It lets you explore an
abandoned, overcast island as a narrator explains the back story of the
events that happened there in a vaguely obtuse and non-chronological
fashion.
At the time, its total refusal to conform to standard perceptions of a 'game' caused a large stir among games journalists and
even now I feel it's a far cry from a successful experiment, but it was
a well-publicised step into a bigger interest in interactive artworks.
As such, Proteus
works out to be a more palatable take on that kind of Art Game. Using
intentionally low resolution graphics, hazy neon gradients, and a
dynamic interactive soundtrack (filled with wavy extended synths and
hushed clarinets), players can wander through the landscape as day turns
to night and clouds roll overhead.
As
developing video games becomes easier, and the underground movement for
producing counter-culture and intellectual games builds steam, the
discussion of what constitutes 'art' or a 'game' will rage on.
Meanwhile, Pippin Barr's Art Game, a game about producing art by playing a game within the game is the best take on the genre I've seen yet. Maybe the Tate Modern should have an Art Game exhibition this year.
Singing
Ribbons will be available for viewings from 14-17 April at the
Coningsby Gallery on Tottenham Street. For more information, check the
gallery website.
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Technology. Show all posts
Wednesday, 4 September 2013
Tech Talk: Tournament organisers scam clients with unauthorised money-making software
This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.
A hidden function in globally used anti-cheating software generated almost $4,000 for an e-sports company, statements revealed this week.
The E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA) distributed the program for users who would be competing in tournaments, but within the code was a function that uses computer processing power to earn a digital currency called Bitcoins.
Users noticed that their computers were running slower and electricity bills had increased, complaining on the ESEA website about the issue.
One of the website staff members, known as 'lpkane', issued an initial statement to the queries.
He mentioned that it was an idea between him and another staff member, 'jaguar', to implement the function as an April Fool’s joke.
He said: "Jaguar and I were talking about how cool it would be."
He went on to claim that they had disabled the mining functionality, after testing it on their own accounts for a few days. Then, a server error resulted in the 'joke' program being distributed to clients.
In lpkane's statement, he said that the program had been live for 48 hours and earned around two Bitcoins (roughly $280 at time of writing).
However, a more formal statement made by the ESEA owner, Craig Turnball, put the mining total at $3,713.50, occurring over two weeks since April 13th.
He says that he was aware of the initial testing phase of the mining functions, but gave no instruction to apply it to user accounts.
Mr Turnball said: "We are extremely disappointed and concerned by the unauthorized actions of this unauthorized individual."
The Bitcoin mining function has since been removed from the software and the value of the Bitcoins mined will be donated to the American Cancer Society, along with a donation of the same amount from ESEA themselves.
There has been no mention of whether lpkane or jaguar have been identified as the "unauthorised individual" or if any action is being taken against them.
Some Background on Bitcoins
Established in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins are electronic cash designed to be transferred with no exchange rate between computers, and can be converted into legal tender. Although the currency is used globally, it is commonly compared to US dollars in value.
They are ‘cryptographic’, using a complex coding system for authenticity and to ensure the same Bitcoin isn’t spent twice. Due to their non-corporeal nature, the actual value of Bitcoins tends to fluctuate often.
Although the non-mediated system of Bitcoins allows for trading of goods and services with minimal intervention from banks, there is a lot of criticism about the currency’s stability and legality.
In its early stages, the non-traceable nature of Bitcoins allowed a website, Silk Road, to freely trade drugs and other contraband.
A man under the handle of ‘Killhamster’ runs a Bitcoin satire website, called Buttcoin. The site archives news about the currency and those that use it, highlighting dangerous or strange behaviour.
His documentation of various screen captures from online message boards and Twitter accounts is rather contentious among the Bitcoin community.
To generate Bitcoins, a computer does a series of complex equations, and upon completion, a central server rewards a number of Bitcoins.
Initially, users were awarded with 25 Bitcoins for every block of equations completed. As more Bitcoins enter the economy, the amount rewarded has decreased. The complexity of the equations is designed to be proportionate with the power of the computer.
In some cases the processes can cause damage to the machine, as the calculations can caused increased processor strain, and greatly increase electricity usage. Computers designed for playing video games have better processors than average.
Enthusiasts will create specifically designed machines for Bitcoin mining. Some are professionally built machines costing thousands of dollars; some are jury-rigged setups with multiple graphics cards and cooling fans.
Sloppy builds are a health hazard – in January a house fire broke out in Ottawa, Canada as a Bitcoin miner’s rig short circuited. The fire resulted in $300,000 in damages.
Avalon Asics are the present leaders in producing hardware with the sole purpose of mining. They will only accept Bitcoins as payment for their services.
A hidden function in globally used anti-cheating software generated almost $4,000 for an e-sports company, statements revealed this week.
The E-Sports Entertainment Association (ESEA) distributed the program for users who would be competing in tournaments, but within the code was a function that uses computer processing power to earn a digital currency called Bitcoins.
Users noticed that their computers were running slower and electricity bills had increased, complaining on the ESEA website about the issue.
One of the website staff members, known as 'lpkane', issued an initial statement to the queries.
He mentioned that it was an idea between him and another staff member, 'jaguar', to implement the function as an April Fool’s joke.
He said: "Jaguar and I were talking about how cool it would be."
He went on to claim that they had disabled the mining functionality, after testing it on their own accounts for a few days. Then, a server error resulted in the 'joke' program being distributed to clients.
In lpkane's statement, he said that the program had been live for 48 hours and earned around two Bitcoins (roughly $280 at time of writing).
However, a more formal statement made by the ESEA owner, Craig Turnball, put the mining total at $3,713.50, occurring over two weeks since April 13th.
He says that he was aware of the initial testing phase of the mining functions, but gave no instruction to apply it to user accounts.
Mr Turnball said: "We are extremely disappointed and concerned by the unauthorized actions of this unauthorized individual."
The Bitcoin mining function has since been removed from the software and the value of the Bitcoins mined will be donated to the American Cancer Society, along with a donation of the same amount from ESEA themselves.
There has been no mention of whether lpkane or jaguar have been identified as the "unauthorised individual" or if any action is being taken against them.
Some Background on Bitcoins
Established in 2008 by Satoshi Nakamoto, Bitcoins are electronic cash designed to be transferred with no exchange rate between computers, and can be converted into legal tender. Although the currency is used globally, it is commonly compared to US dollars in value.
They are ‘cryptographic’, using a complex coding system for authenticity and to ensure the same Bitcoin isn’t spent twice. Due to their non-corporeal nature, the actual value of Bitcoins tends to fluctuate often.
Although the non-mediated system of Bitcoins allows for trading of goods and services with minimal intervention from banks, there is a lot of criticism about the currency’s stability and legality.
In its early stages, the non-traceable nature of Bitcoins allowed a website, Silk Road, to freely trade drugs and other contraband.
A man under the handle of ‘Killhamster’ runs a Bitcoin satire website, called Buttcoin. The site archives news about the currency and those that use it, highlighting dangerous or strange behaviour.
His documentation of various screen captures from online message boards and Twitter accounts is rather contentious among the Bitcoin community.
To generate Bitcoins, a computer does a series of complex equations, and upon completion, a central server rewards a number of Bitcoins.
Initially, users were awarded with 25 Bitcoins for every block of equations completed. As more Bitcoins enter the economy, the amount rewarded has decreased. The complexity of the equations is designed to be proportionate with the power of the computer.
In some cases the processes can cause damage to the machine, as the calculations can caused increased processor strain, and greatly increase electricity usage. Computers designed for playing video games have better processors than average.
Enthusiasts will create specifically designed machines for Bitcoin mining. Some are professionally built machines costing thousands of dollars; some are jury-rigged setups with multiple graphics cards and cooling fans.
Sloppy builds are a health hazard – in January a house fire broke out in Ottawa, Canada as a Bitcoin miner’s rig short circuited. The fire resulted in $300,000 in damages.
Avalon Asics are the present leaders in producing hardware with the sole purpose of mining. They will only accept Bitcoins as payment for their services.
Tech Talk: Xbox One
This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.
You probably already know this, but electronics are designed to have a lifespan. Apple tends to design their iPod so you'll own one for about a year before buying another. Gaming consoles work the same way, but a tad slower.
We're on to our 9th generation of home consoles: Nintendo's WiiU will be soon met with Sony's Playstation 4 this year, and this week we've had a conference from Microsoft, announcing their new console - the Xbox One.
Even though its presence was long awaited (you could argue it was guaranteed), the response was a great deal less positive than Microsoft were hoping. In fact, the conferenced managed to cause a large spike in stocks for Sony and Nintendo.
Now, I'm no business analyst, but my diagnosis is that there's been a hefty misunderstanding between what Microsoft thinks they should sell, and what their user base actually want.
The Xbox One (which I have seen amusingly referred to as Xbone, so I shall do the same) kind of resembles a mid-90s VCR, with an iPod black sheen.
To compare it to the Xbox 360, the Xbone has a 500GB hard drive and 8GB of RAM (compared to the 320GB storage and 512MB RAM of the 360), and is designed to have motion sensors and connectivity with tablets right from the word go.
So far, so sensible. The hardware's vital statistics bring it closer to the brunt that (incredibly expensive) Gaming PCs are capable of, but these are mere figures if they're not used for something important.
This is where I feel Microsoft slips up. When talking of the Xbone's special features, spokespeople at the conference focused on trying to pitch a 'multi-entertainment' product, with a lot of words dedicated to video streaming, voice commands and recording footage of games you're playing.
It's all rather superfluous. Most TV addicts already have access to Netflix, voice commands are the territory of couch potatoes, and the recording functions are suspiciously similar to what Sony announced for the Playstation 4 a few months ago.
The amount of time dedicated to actual games for the console was comparatively brief, and none of it was especially astounding. In fact, everything they announced was a sequel - FIFA 2014, Forza Motorsport 5, Call of Duty: Ghost.
Only one new franchise was announced - Quantum Break. The brief trailer reveals precious little, though it's the prettiest destruction of a bridge I've ever seen.
According to Remedy, who are developing the game, Quantum Break aims to meld TV shows and gaming experiences together, which honestly could go in some interesting directions - though it's way too early to get excited.
However, the things that concern me most weren't discussed in the conference at all. As with the 360, the Xbone won't let games developers self-publish.
Traditionally, games developers release their titles through a publisher (companies like EA, Activision and Konami are publishers), but in the present industry, there's a very popular trend of smaller development studios that can't afford a publisher can still release their games digitally.
With Microsoft forcing teams to use publishers to host their content, a thriving part of the games development industry is suddenly hamstrung.
Buying a new games console is actually a hefty investment - the basic hardware isn't cheap, so most are hesitant to make the purchase unless they know they are going to get enough hours of fun to make things worthwhile.
And unfortunately for Microsoft, being able to watch television and play Yet Another Football Game 2014 doesn't inspire me or my wallet with confidence.
But it's not too late - in the months leading up to the Xbone's release, they can still announce more interesting titles, lower the barrier of entry to smaller development companies, and realise that the main reason why people buy games consoles is to play games.
You probably already know this, but electronics are designed to have a lifespan. Apple tends to design their iPod so you'll own one for about a year before buying another. Gaming consoles work the same way, but a tad slower.
We're on to our 9th generation of home consoles: Nintendo's WiiU will be soon met with Sony's Playstation 4 this year, and this week we've had a conference from Microsoft, announcing their new console - the Xbox One.
Even though its presence was long awaited (you could argue it was guaranteed), the response was a great deal less positive than Microsoft were hoping. In fact, the conferenced managed to cause a large spike in stocks for Sony and Nintendo.
Now, I'm no business analyst, but my diagnosis is that there's been a hefty misunderstanding between what Microsoft thinks they should sell, and what their user base actually want.
The Xbox One (which I have seen amusingly referred to as Xbone, so I shall do the same) kind of resembles a mid-90s VCR, with an iPod black sheen.
To compare it to the Xbox 360, the Xbone has a 500GB hard drive and 8GB of RAM (compared to the 320GB storage and 512MB RAM of the 360), and is designed to have motion sensors and connectivity with tablets right from the word go.
So far, so sensible. The hardware's vital statistics bring it closer to the brunt that (incredibly expensive) Gaming PCs are capable of, but these are mere figures if they're not used for something important.
This is where I feel Microsoft slips up. When talking of the Xbone's special features, spokespeople at the conference focused on trying to pitch a 'multi-entertainment' product, with a lot of words dedicated to video streaming, voice commands and recording footage of games you're playing.
It's all rather superfluous. Most TV addicts already have access to Netflix, voice commands are the territory of couch potatoes, and the recording functions are suspiciously similar to what Sony announced for the Playstation 4 a few months ago.
The amount of time dedicated to actual games for the console was comparatively brief, and none of it was especially astounding. In fact, everything they announced was a sequel - FIFA 2014, Forza Motorsport 5, Call of Duty: Ghost.
Only one new franchise was announced - Quantum Break. The brief trailer reveals precious little, though it's the prettiest destruction of a bridge I've ever seen.
According to Remedy, who are developing the game, Quantum Break aims to meld TV shows and gaming experiences together, which honestly could go in some interesting directions - though it's way too early to get excited.
However, the things that concern me most weren't discussed in the conference at all. As with the 360, the Xbone won't let games developers self-publish.
Traditionally, games developers release their titles through a publisher (companies like EA, Activision and Konami are publishers), but in the present industry, there's a very popular trend of smaller development studios that can't afford a publisher can still release their games digitally.
With Microsoft forcing teams to use publishers to host their content, a thriving part of the games development industry is suddenly hamstrung.
Buying a new games console is actually a hefty investment - the basic hardware isn't cheap, so most are hesitant to make the purchase unless they know they are going to get enough hours of fun to make things worthwhile.
And unfortunately for Microsoft, being able to watch television and play Yet Another Football Game 2014 doesn't inspire me or my wallet with confidence.
But it's not too late - in the months leading up to the Xbone's release, they can still announce more interesting titles, lower the barrier of entry to smaller development companies, and realise that the main reason why people buy games consoles is to play games.
Tech Talk: Pandora's Printer
This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.
The printing press in the 1400s was one of the great innovations of humanity - allowing us to communicate with others, duplicate important texts, and, several hundred years of improvements later, drown beleaguered office staff under mountains of paperwork.
But now we've moved on to the next dimension with the 3D printer. It does exactly what the name suggests - creating copies of objects rather than text. Instead of being filled with ink cartridges, they take a feedstock of molten plastic (or even organic material if you want to print a hamburger), building up the finished product layer by layer.
The technology has been around for a few years, existing within construction and engineering industries. The age of commercialised 3D printers is inching closer, although it's still too pricey to show up in your Argos catalogue. Even the cheapest models these days will set you back around £5,000.
The useful potential for 3D printing is astounding - if your wardrobe, bicycle or washing machine broke and needed a small obscure part, you could just print it at home. Creative types could make anything from furniture to musical instruments to kitsch mantelpiece ornaments.
Or, if you're Defense Distributed, you could start a line of printable firearms.
The arms manufacturing company had previously been designing components for existing guns, but their current project is for the "Liberator", a handgun made entirely from printable parts with the exception of a metal firing pin (an ordinary nail from any hardware store).
Blueprints for the Liberator were released on the internet earlier this week, and already over 100,000 people have downloaded it, according to Forbes.
The complete model looks like something from a shooting game made by Fisher Price, but its firing capability is definitely real.
Users have downloaded the plans from both the company's website, and through a torrent hosted on The Pirate Bay. The majority of the downloads were in the US, but large numbers of downloads also came from Spain, Brazil and the UK.
Understandably, authorities are sweating bullets over the idea that a firearm is so easily accessible. The Senator of California, Leland Yee, showed concern over a widely available gun that can't be picked up by metal detectors.
Over here, the Metropolitan Police have put out a statement, reminding that our gun control laws require a person to be a Registered Firearms Dealer to manufacture a gun. So while having the blueprint isn't illegal, printing out the parts will get you nicked.
The US State Department sent a letter to Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed's founder, with a demand that the online blueprints are taken down. Of course, now they've been made public, totally eradicating them is decidedly impossible. Still, Defense Distributed have removed the item from their servers.
The decision to release the blueprints publicly ties into Mr Wilson's stance on information censorship. An 'all information should be without regulation' stance similar to that of Julian Assange is partnered with Wilson's politics on gun control.
In my opinion, that's an evil scheme if I ever saw one. To tie freedom of information (which I mostly agree with as a journalist) with pro-firearms rhetoric really shoots holes in the credibility of the former. At least any anti-establishment sentiments he had fell by the wayside when he sheepishly removed the blueprints from his site when asked.
It feels like the age of domestic 3D printers will be postponed - I don't see HP and Epson wanting to make consumer models when the public see the technology as inherently dangerous or illegal.
I was looking forward to being printing new glasses frames, fashion accessories and miniature figurines of video game characters, but until the violence fetishists are out of the public focus, my 3D modelling hobby shall have to be put on hold.
There is some, hope, though. Chris Anderson, the CEO of 3D Robotics says that 3D printing is a bad method for gun manufacturing, as the plastic wouldn't be able to handle the tensile strength their metal brethren are capable of.
The printing press in the 1400s was one of the great innovations of humanity - allowing us to communicate with others, duplicate important texts, and, several hundred years of improvements later, drown beleaguered office staff under mountains of paperwork.
But now we've moved on to the next dimension with the 3D printer. It does exactly what the name suggests - creating copies of objects rather than text. Instead of being filled with ink cartridges, they take a feedstock of molten plastic (or even organic material if you want to print a hamburger), building up the finished product layer by layer.
The technology has been around for a few years, existing within construction and engineering industries. The age of commercialised 3D printers is inching closer, although it's still too pricey to show up in your Argos catalogue. Even the cheapest models these days will set you back around £5,000.
The useful potential for 3D printing is astounding - if your wardrobe, bicycle or washing machine broke and needed a small obscure part, you could just print it at home. Creative types could make anything from furniture to musical instruments to kitsch mantelpiece ornaments.
Or, if you're Defense Distributed, you could start a line of printable firearms.
The arms manufacturing company had previously been designing components for existing guns, but their current project is for the "Liberator", a handgun made entirely from printable parts with the exception of a metal firing pin (an ordinary nail from any hardware store).
Blueprints for the Liberator were released on the internet earlier this week, and already over 100,000 people have downloaded it, according to Forbes.
The complete model looks like something from a shooting game made by Fisher Price, but its firing capability is definitely real.
Users have downloaded the plans from both the company's website, and through a torrent hosted on The Pirate Bay. The majority of the downloads were in the US, but large numbers of downloads also came from Spain, Brazil and the UK.
Understandably, authorities are sweating bullets over the idea that a firearm is so easily accessible. The Senator of California, Leland Yee, showed concern over a widely available gun that can't be picked up by metal detectors.
Over here, the Metropolitan Police have put out a statement, reminding that our gun control laws require a person to be a Registered Firearms Dealer to manufacture a gun. So while having the blueprint isn't illegal, printing out the parts will get you nicked.
The US State Department sent a letter to Cody Wilson, Defense Distributed's founder, with a demand that the online blueprints are taken down. Of course, now they've been made public, totally eradicating them is decidedly impossible. Still, Defense Distributed have removed the item from their servers.
The decision to release the blueprints publicly ties into Mr Wilson's stance on information censorship. An 'all information should be without regulation' stance similar to that of Julian Assange is partnered with Wilson's politics on gun control.
In my opinion, that's an evil scheme if I ever saw one. To tie freedom of information (which I mostly agree with as a journalist) with pro-firearms rhetoric really shoots holes in the credibility of the former. At least any anti-establishment sentiments he had fell by the wayside when he sheepishly removed the blueprints from his site when asked.
It feels like the age of domestic 3D printers will be postponed - I don't see HP and Epson wanting to make consumer models when the public see the technology as inherently dangerous or illegal.
I was looking forward to being printing new glasses frames, fashion accessories and miniature figurines of video game characters, but until the violence fetishists are out of the public focus, my 3D modelling hobby shall have to be put on hold.
There is some, hope, though. Chris Anderson, the CEO of 3D Robotics says that 3D printing is a bad method for gun manufacturing, as the plastic wouldn't be able to handle the tensile strength their metal brethren are capable of.
Monday, 29 April 2013
Tech Talk: The ghost of Myspace past
This feature can also be found at the South West Londoner, here.
Every so often, I remember something embarrassing I did as a teenager and feel such intense shame that I am slightly more welcoming to the idea of being struck by lightning. Or a nuclear warhead.
How lucky I am that nearly all of the message boards and social networking I did in high school has since been consigned to the annals of internet history. To that end, I feel just a touch of sympathy (though not much) for the teenagers of the last decade, who aren’t going to have their Facebook and Twitter exploits fade any time soon.
Indeed, Paris Brown, the 17-year-old adviser to the Kent police commissioner had her career grind to a screeching halt, because she forgot (and her detractors chose to not forgive) that teenagers will say some impressively stupid things when left to their own devices.
The racist and homophobic tweets that were plastered all over newspapers last week apparently were dredged from years ago, and Ms Brown had probably forgotten all about them.
That’s not to say that they aren’t awful (my goodness, I never realised casual racism could sound so inane) but it’s a useful parable for all of us. If someone doesn’t like you, it’s the easiest thing for them to put your name into Google and browse through the various terrible thoughts you’ve had.
For most it will be incredibly boring things, but to potential employers who need to whittle down applicants – or dissenters looking to do a little character assassination – they’ll take any excuse.
Even if you’re already comfortably set in a job, you’re not safe. Here’s a story from last year that struck a chord with me personally.
Lauren Wainwright is a games journalist who was called out in October last year over something she had posted on Twitter. She expressed a lot of excitement for the newest Tomb Raider game (which is actually released now). However, it was picked up that Ms Wainwright had worked for the publishers for Tomb Raider in the past – it said as much on her LinkedIn profile.
This lead to suspicion over whether the opinions she was expressing were actually genuine. Articles were written, fingers were pointed, and other journalists were threatened with Libel. Members of the public, looking for journalists (not to mention a woman) to vilify, took to threatening Wainwright personally. It was a huge mess.
I was lucky enough to meet her in person, and was told that her excitement for Tomb Raider was, perhaps obviously, entirely genuine and unrelated to her previous employers.
While I feel there could have been a little more attention paid to what people could infer from the tweets of professional figures, it would be wholly unfair to blame Ms Wainwright for what had happened to her.
The lesson to be learned here is that we could all do with taking a step back and looking at just what we’re posting in public spaces, and how it could affect us professionally.
The simplest solution is to isolate anything that could reflect badly on you to somewhere more private. Either by limiting viewer access, or better yet using a pseudonym. Many people run two Twitter accounts – one for professional discourse, and one for general purpose. The people it will matter to will still know it’s you, but Google won’t.
Speaking of which, it may do you well to search your own name. Especially if you have a distinctive one (like me, I guess). If you had a Myspace in the distant past, now would be a good time to shut it down.
On a closing note, if you have a free afternoon, I strongly recommend you check out dont take it personally, babe, it just aint your story – a visual novel written by Christine Love. The name is ridiculous, but it explores the themes of a future where accessing the messages and profiles of someone online is commonplace. Would your judgements of people be clouded by things you're not meant to know? See for yourself.
Every so often, I remember something embarrassing I did as a teenager and feel such intense shame that I am slightly more welcoming to the idea of being struck by lightning. Or a nuclear warhead.
How lucky I am that nearly all of the message boards and social networking I did in high school has since been consigned to the annals of internet history. To that end, I feel just a touch of sympathy (though not much) for the teenagers of the last decade, who aren’t going to have their Facebook and Twitter exploits fade any time soon.
Indeed, Paris Brown, the 17-year-old adviser to the Kent police commissioner had her career grind to a screeching halt, because she forgot (and her detractors chose to not forgive) that teenagers will say some impressively stupid things when left to their own devices.
The racist and homophobic tweets that were plastered all over newspapers last week apparently were dredged from years ago, and Ms Brown had probably forgotten all about them.
That’s not to say that they aren’t awful (my goodness, I never realised casual racism could sound so inane) but it’s a useful parable for all of us. If someone doesn’t like you, it’s the easiest thing for them to put your name into Google and browse through the various terrible thoughts you’ve had.
For most it will be incredibly boring things, but to potential employers who need to whittle down applicants – or dissenters looking to do a little character assassination – they’ll take any excuse.
Even if you’re already comfortably set in a job, you’re not safe. Here’s a story from last year that struck a chord with me personally.
Lauren Wainwright is a games journalist who was called out in October last year over something she had posted on Twitter. She expressed a lot of excitement for the newest Tomb Raider game (which is actually released now). However, it was picked up that Ms Wainwright had worked for the publishers for Tomb Raider in the past – it said as much on her LinkedIn profile.
This lead to suspicion over whether the opinions she was expressing were actually genuine. Articles were written, fingers were pointed, and other journalists were threatened with Libel. Members of the public, looking for journalists (not to mention a woman) to vilify, took to threatening Wainwright personally. It was a huge mess.
I was lucky enough to meet her in person, and was told that her excitement for Tomb Raider was, perhaps obviously, entirely genuine and unrelated to her previous employers.
While I feel there could have been a little more attention paid to what people could infer from the tweets of professional figures, it would be wholly unfair to blame Ms Wainwright for what had happened to her.
The lesson to be learned here is that we could all do with taking a step back and looking at just what we’re posting in public spaces, and how it could affect us professionally.
The simplest solution is to isolate anything that could reflect badly on you to somewhere more private. Either by limiting viewer access, or better yet using a pseudonym. Many people run two Twitter accounts – one for professional discourse, and one for general purpose. The people it will matter to will still know it’s you, but Google won’t.
Speaking of which, it may do you well to search your own name. Especially if you have a distinctive one (like me, I guess). If you had a Myspace in the distant past, now would be a good time to shut it down.
On a closing note, if you have a free afternoon, I strongly recommend you check out dont take it personally, babe, it just aint your story – a visual novel written by Christine Love. The name is ridiculous, but it explores the themes of a future where accessing the messages and profiles of someone online is commonplace. Would your judgements of people be clouded by things you're not meant to know? See for yourself.
Thursday, 18 April 2013
Tech Talk: Remove U
This feature can also be found on the South West Londoner, here.
Nick D'Aloisio is both a pretty cool guy and entirely frustrating.
On one hand, I entirely support independent developers. With app stores on mobile phones and game download services like Steam, Average Joes being able to make and share creative endeavours is a glimpse into a marginally less corporate future.
On another, he's a 17-year-old kid who's more financially successful than me. What a little punk.
The actual app itself, Summly, is honestly pretty useful. With Google's news feed aggregator dying a death, my main method of pumping raw information directly into my veins will be cut off in a few months, leaving me with a hole in my life that Summly would fill – if I had an iPhone.
That someone so young made it big isn't surprising. Newspapers were stunned to see a teenager making so much money, but we forget that we're all old, and already outstripped by the next generation. I say this as a 22-year-old.
Schools are teaching programming a lot more these days, and the software for making your own programs is more accessible than it’s ever been. That's especially true for games production – there have been some pretty good books written about it.
Hell, I'm sure I could make my own hyper-successful app – it's not like I lack ideas. I'm sure there's a hole in the market for misanthropic technology users like me.
****
Are you having problems with people in your life? Family? Co-Workers? Frenemies? Don't you just sometimes wish that you could make annoying people disappear?
Well, you need the latest product from BladesTech; Remove U. Available for only £9.99!
Remove U is the killer app for your smartphone, computer, GPS and Google Glass headset that offers a clean and efficient solution for clearing up your social problems.
Remove U works with all social software, from Facebook to World of Warcraft to the dregs of society who still use Bebo. When installed, it will linger unobtrusively in the background of your computer systems waiting for activation.
Got into an argument with someone? Say or type the magic words "Why don't you just vanish!" and Remove U kicks into gear.
Remove
U doesn't just block your target; it's closely engineered to remove all
sights and references to your now ex-acquaintance.
Photographs with the target tagged will be automatically photoshopped to remove them from the picture - and top of the range facial recognition software will insure you won't accidentally see them in photos elsewhere, either. There's a chance it might accidentally remove faces of unrelated people, but if they're as hideous as That Guy You Don't Like, it won't be a big deal.
Remove U doesn't just stop at aesthetic removal, the target of your ire will be professionally invisible to you too! Looking through LinkedIn and public address books, Remove U can find and block addresses, phone numbers and public domain documents that reference the target. Trying to access web pages that are blocked in this manner will redirect you to our website of cute kittens in sweaters. Adorable!
Those who need to drive past the target’s home on the way to work will have their GPS map subtly altered so the building is replaced with a relaxing rural scene of your choosing An open field, a serene lake or unspoilt woodland are all at your fingertips.
Google Glass users will also have access to the 'Passive-Aggressive Camouflage' feature! By projecting subtle patterns of light into your eye, it will blur the image of anyone the Glasses pick up as looking like the target. They're a real faceless nobody now!
Customers who want additional functionality can purchase downloadable content from our online store. For a nominal fee you can have access to the Deluxe Remove U Pack, that not only gives you 3 gift codes for your friends, it will also remove your internet presence from the people that you block!
Notes and Disclaimers:
Cancellations to the Remove U service can only be processed by calling our premium-rate customer service number in Siberia, and paying the cancellation fee. The ability to restore Removed targets is available at £30 per restoration. Passive-Aggressive Camouflage may cause blindness in 5% of users. We are not responsible for any lasting social, physical or mental injury Remove U may cause. You probably deserve it, anyway.
Nick D'Aloisio is both a pretty cool guy and entirely frustrating.
On one hand, I entirely support independent developers. With app stores on mobile phones and game download services like Steam, Average Joes being able to make and share creative endeavours is a glimpse into a marginally less corporate future.
On another, he's a 17-year-old kid who's more financially successful than me. What a little punk.
The actual app itself, Summly, is honestly pretty useful. With Google's news feed aggregator dying a death, my main method of pumping raw information directly into my veins will be cut off in a few months, leaving me with a hole in my life that Summly would fill – if I had an iPhone.
That someone so young made it big isn't surprising. Newspapers were stunned to see a teenager making so much money, but we forget that we're all old, and already outstripped by the next generation. I say this as a 22-year-old.
Schools are teaching programming a lot more these days, and the software for making your own programs is more accessible than it’s ever been. That's especially true for games production – there have been some pretty good books written about it.
Hell, I'm sure I could make my own hyper-successful app – it's not like I lack ideas. I'm sure there's a hole in the market for misanthropic technology users like me.
****
Are you having problems with people in your life? Family? Co-Workers? Frenemies? Don't you just sometimes wish that you could make annoying people disappear?
Well, you need the latest product from BladesTech; Remove U. Available for only £9.99!
Remove U is the killer app for your smartphone, computer, GPS and Google Glass headset that offers a clean and efficient solution for clearing up your social problems.
Remove U works with all social software, from Facebook to World of Warcraft to the dregs of society who still use Bebo. When installed, it will linger unobtrusively in the background of your computer systems waiting for activation.
Got into an argument with someone? Say or type the magic words "Why don't you just vanish!" and Remove U kicks into gear.
Photographs with the target tagged will be automatically photoshopped to remove them from the picture - and top of the range facial recognition software will insure you won't accidentally see them in photos elsewhere, either. There's a chance it might accidentally remove faces of unrelated people, but if they're as hideous as That Guy You Don't Like, it won't be a big deal.
Remove U doesn't just stop at aesthetic removal, the target of your ire will be professionally invisible to you too! Looking through LinkedIn and public address books, Remove U can find and block addresses, phone numbers and public domain documents that reference the target. Trying to access web pages that are blocked in this manner will redirect you to our website of cute kittens in sweaters. Adorable!
Those who need to drive past the target’s home on the way to work will have their GPS map subtly altered so the building is replaced with a relaxing rural scene of your choosing An open field, a serene lake or unspoilt woodland are all at your fingertips.
Google Glass users will also have access to the 'Passive-Aggressive Camouflage' feature! By projecting subtle patterns of light into your eye, it will blur the image of anyone the Glasses pick up as looking like the target. They're a real faceless nobody now!
Customers who want additional functionality can purchase downloadable content from our online store. For a nominal fee you can have access to the Deluxe Remove U Pack, that not only gives you 3 gift codes for your friends, it will also remove your internet presence from the people that you block!
Notes and Disclaimers:
Cancellations to the Remove U service can only be processed by calling our premium-rate customer service number in Siberia, and paying the cancellation fee. The ability to restore Removed targets is available at £30 per restoration. Passive-Aggressive Camouflage may cause blindness in 5% of users. We are not responsible for any lasting social, physical or mental injury Remove U may cause. You probably deserve it, anyway.
Tech Talk: This personality has 5,000 Likes
This feature can also be found on the South West Londoner, here.
Social Networking is both the glory and the bane of the modern age. It connects us to our friends and family in a way that would be impossible 20 years ago, but there are very few that use it who don't feel at least a little... exposed.
There's a bit of a mental disconnect where we are all aware that what we put on the internet is publically accessible, but we’re still willing to share our interests in great detail.
You may think that what you post on Facebook doesn't reveal too much about yourself, but a recent study by the University of Cambridge discusses a system of working out a person's personality and background from as little as a single Facebook like.
To quickly explain how, they took a sample of 58,466 American volunteers, who gave their Facebook profiles, a list of their Likes, and took a standardised personality test. Matching the test results to the pages they liked, those correlations were used to work out the personalities of other Facebook users.
The range of categories discerned is pretty mind blowing, if I'm honest. Things like age and gender are obvious, but the ability to predict things like race, sexuality, political leanings and drug use is a lot more shocking. In fact, male homosexuality was predicted with 85% accuracy and determining race (either Caucasian or African American) was predicted with a whopping 95%.
There are also results for personality traits like intelligence, emotional stability and satisfaction with life, but the accuracy of these was a lot more variable. The levels of IQ determined from Likes only matched up with personality tests 39% of the time. However, to guess something as nebulous as intelligence correctly more than a third of the time is nothing to sniff at.
Of course, the more Likes a person has, the easier it is to determine their personality. For age and gender, you only need to have Liked 10 things for this system to guess right with at least 50% accuracy. The curve of prediction accuracy peters out eventually, so those of you out there with 700 Likes, you don't need to worry - the system could figure you out with 300.
The types of Liked items that indicated personality traits are a mixed bag. It wouldn't take much lateral thinking to decide if someone who Liked the "No H8 Campaign" page is gay or not, but "Curly Fries" don't seem to have an obvious relation to high IQ. I definitely agree with "Being Confused After Waking Up From Naps" being an indicator of Male Heterosexuality.
The study is understandably scary news to anyone who has concerns for internet privacy, but although we humans can't help but use social trends to express ourselves, we have far more than just one personality.
How you identify yourself changes all the time, depending on where you are and who you're talking to. Your personality online is most likely a good deal different from how you are in real life, and I’m sure the way you use Facebook is different to your Twitter social life.
It's sadly quite hard to break social stereotyping and mask your gender, race or sexuality online (even if you don't overtly post about it, correlations can still be made), but your emotional stability or your tastes in entertainment change all the time. There's no need to feel indignant just because Liking Lady Antebellum is linked to low IQ.
I hope the researchers of this study move on to other social networks in later research. A personality breakdown on Tumblr would be a sight to see.
Want to learn more?
Social Networking is both the glory and the bane of the modern age. It connects us to our friends and family in a way that would be impossible 20 years ago, but there are very few that use it who don't feel at least a little... exposed.
There's a bit of a mental disconnect where we are all aware that what we put on the internet is publically accessible, but we’re still willing to share our interests in great detail.
You may think that what you post on Facebook doesn't reveal too much about yourself, but a recent study by the University of Cambridge discusses a system of working out a person's personality and background from as little as a single Facebook like.
To quickly explain how, they took a sample of 58,466 American volunteers, who gave their Facebook profiles, a list of their Likes, and took a standardised personality test. Matching the test results to the pages they liked, those correlations were used to work out the personalities of other Facebook users.
The range of categories discerned is pretty mind blowing, if I'm honest. Things like age and gender are obvious, but the ability to predict things like race, sexuality, political leanings and drug use is a lot more shocking. In fact, male homosexuality was predicted with 85% accuracy and determining race (either Caucasian or African American) was predicted with a whopping 95%.
There are also results for personality traits like intelligence, emotional stability and satisfaction with life, but the accuracy of these was a lot more variable. The levels of IQ determined from Likes only matched up with personality tests 39% of the time. However, to guess something as nebulous as intelligence correctly more than a third of the time is nothing to sniff at.
Of course, the more Likes a person has, the easier it is to determine their personality. For age and gender, you only need to have Liked 10 things for this system to guess right with at least 50% accuracy. The curve of prediction accuracy peters out eventually, so those of you out there with 700 Likes, you don't need to worry - the system could figure you out with 300.
The types of Liked items that indicated personality traits are a mixed bag. It wouldn't take much lateral thinking to decide if someone who Liked the "No H8 Campaign" page is gay or not, but "Curly Fries" don't seem to have an obvious relation to high IQ. I definitely agree with "Being Confused After Waking Up From Naps" being an indicator of Male Heterosexuality.
The study is understandably scary news to anyone who has concerns for internet privacy, but although we humans can't help but use social trends to express ourselves, we have far more than just one personality.
How you identify yourself changes all the time, depending on where you are and who you're talking to. Your personality online is most likely a good deal different from how you are in real life, and I’m sure the way you use Facebook is different to your Twitter social life.
It's sadly quite hard to break social stereotyping and mask your gender, race or sexuality online (even if you don't overtly post about it, correlations can still be made), but your emotional stability or your tastes in entertainment change all the time. There's no need to feel indignant just because Liking Lady Antebellum is linked to low IQ.
I hope the researchers of this study move on to other social networks in later research. A personality breakdown on Tumblr would be a sight to see.
Want to learn more?
- You can take the test yourself at You Are What You Like.
- Zadie Smith feels a bit left behind by the ‘Facebook Generation’ in a post on NY Books
- The study has a supplement that lists the biggest indicators of personality types.
Tech Talk: Though the Google glass
This feature can also be found on the South West Londoner, here.
The world of cyberpunk novels is close at hand. A few years ago, having a computer screen overlay your vision felt like a flight of fancy - but now is the time of Google Glass, headgear produced by the technology giant that can shoot video, give directions and do video calls.
It's being advertised as a new wave in content sharing, and that's not off-base. In the same way that the advent of smartphones have made it easier to take a picture and email it or upload to Facebook, Google Glass reduces it to simple verbal commands. Recording drunken exploits has never been so effort-free. From the experiences of those who've tested the device, it works startlingly well.
Project leaders Steve Lee and Isabelle Olsson see Google Glass as removing the barrier between using technology and living your life. They find that looking at a screen or through a camera lens shifts your attention away from the real world. With the old joke of people walking into trees and lamp posts because they're so absorbed in their phone, it's not entirely far-fetched.
However, the more cynical out there (myself included) find this all a bit voyeuristic. Consumers recording anything and everything for Google's perusal would both give me a vague feeling of being watched, and make me wary of what Google would do with all this footage.
To understand my concern, you'll want to be aware of a concept called 'Business intelligence'. Put simply, it's when companies process the information you leave out on the 'net. If you have a Google Mail account, and then search the internet or browse YouTube while logged in, Google remembers.
What do they do with this information? It's all pretty innocuous, really. Most noticeably, the recommendations you get on YouTube are based on your browsing history. But it's also used to give advertisers a little more information about you.
Nothing highly confidential is ever taken through Business Intelligence - your credit card details are safe - but information that you're shopping for suede shoes, or you like watching urban dance videos on YouTube is going to be useful to someone - and they'll pay for it, too.
The impacts that Google Glass could have on data research is absolutely huge. Your information, both online and offline would be at the fingertips of Google. Whether they actually do anything with it is down to the terms and conditions that you'll (inevitably) agree to upon purchasing the hardware.
The biggest hurdle for the development of the Google Glass (and the audience's reception) is how the general public can maintain their own privacy. Sure, Google can't stop a consumer from using the Glass to peep on the neighbours, but because it's an item of wireless technology, it can do all kinds of things, if the software's there. Facial recognition is always just on the cusp of being a reality; and while it would make tagging your photos for Facebook a lot more straightforward, there are plenty of people who would rather remain unseen.
Are there prevention methods? Google developers are hoping that the community of Glass users will form their own ethics around not recording people who want to remain unobserved, and give indications of when they aren't filming. For those who fear facial recognition technology, there's the fashionably avant-garde concept of make-up and hairstyle designs to fool computers, which look suitably cyberpunk. Detecting the wireless signals of Google Glass headsets would be a simple hack.
But I'm getting a little speculative here. While Google Glass is definitely first chapter in a story of technology becoming more integrated into our bodies, we can only guess at Google using any recordings for truly nefarious plots, as plausible as they may be.
I would still totally buy a pair.
Interested in finding out more?
The world of cyberpunk novels is close at hand. A few years ago, having a computer screen overlay your vision felt like a flight of fancy - but now is the time of Google Glass, headgear produced by the technology giant that can shoot video, give directions and do video calls.
It's being advertised as a new wave in content sharing, and that's not off-base. In the same way that the advent of smartphones have made it easier to take a picture and email it or upload to Facebook, Google Glass reduces it to simple verbal commands. Recording drunken exploits has never been so effort-free. From the experiences of those who've tested the device, it works startlingly well.
Project leaders Steve Lee and Isabelle Olsson see Google Glass as removing the barrier between using technology and living your life. They find that looking at a screen or through a camera lens shifts your attention away from the real world. With the old joke of people walking into trees and lamp posts because they're so absorbed in their phone, it's not entirely far-fetched.
However, the more cynical out there (myself included) find this all a bit voyeuristic. Consumers recording anything and everything for Google's perusal would both give me a vague feeling of being watched, and make me wary of what Google would do with all this footage.
To understand my concern, you'll want to be aware of a concept called 'Business intelligence'. Put simply, it's when companies process the information you leave out on the 'net. If you have a Google Mail account, and then search the internet or browse YouTube while logged in, Google remembers.
What do they do with this information? It's all pretty innocuous, really. Most noticeably, the recommendations you get on YouTube are based on your browsing history. But it's also used to give advertisers a little more information about you.
Nothing highly confidential is ever taken through Business Intelligence - your credit card details are safe - but information that you're shopping for suede shoes, or you like watching urban dance videos on YouTube is going to be useful to someone - and they'll pay for it, too.
The impacts that Google Glass could have on data research is absolutely huge. Your information, both online and offline would be at the fingertips of Google. Whether they actually do anything with it is down to the terms and conditions that you'll (inevitably) agree to upon purchasing the hardware.
The biggest hurdle for the development of the Google Glass (and the audience's reception) is how the general public can maintain their own privacy. Sure, Google can't stop a consumer from using the Glass to peep on the neighbours, but because it's an item of wireless technology, it can do all kinds of things, if the software's there. Facial recognition is always just on the cusp of being a reality; and while it would make tagging your photos for Facebook a lot more straightforward, there are plenty of people who would rather remain unseen.
Are there prevention methods? Google developers are hoping that the community of Glass users will form their own ethics around not recording people who want to remain unobserved, and give indications of when they aren't filming. For those who fear facial recognition technology, there's the fashionably avant-garde concept of make-up and hairstyle designs to fool computers, which look suitably cyberpunk. Detecting the wireless signals of Google Glass headsets would be a simple hack.
But I'm getting a little speculative here. While Google Glass is definitely first chapter in a story of technology becoming more integrated into our bodies, we can only guess at Google using any recordings for truly nefarious plots, as plausible as they may be.
I would still totally buy a pair.
Interested in finding out more?
-
Google Glass' website has promotional material and demonstration videos.
-
Charlie Brooker's Black Mirror had a great episode on the woes of integrated technology: 'The Entire History of You'
- Rainbow's End by Vernor Vinge is a classic cyberpunk tale that explores the roads technology like Google Glass could eventually go down.
Wednesday, 12 September 2012
A Future of Polygonal Friends: Final Comments
This piece is split into three parts (Part 1 is here, Part 2 is here), and was written for the Critical Distance Blogs of the Round Table.
Thanks for taking the time to read 'A Future of Polygonal Friends'!
This was
actually an idea I'd had for a long long time, inspired by an article
I read in EDGE magazine,
talking about AI in games. My initial angle was actually to talk
about how we can design better and more empathic NPCs on the whole,
but when I saw Critical Distance's Blogs of the Round Table request
('Blogger Jam' would be a way better title, no need to thank me), I
set out to take my article concept out of the realm of Notepad
musings, and into a properly published format.
And
wow. This essay is way too long, hardly ideal for putting on the web.
But I felt that to explore the idea in a way that doesn't make people
frantically sprint after my own leaps in logic, the first half was
necessary. Plus, since this is written with other media bloggers in
mind, hopefully those that stumble across this will make it to the
end (clearly you have, or you wouldn't be reading this!)
Honestly,
I struggled a little reworking this to fit the theme in a way I felt
was complete. Writing about AI and good storytelling are both simple
enough, but how do you link the two without sounding like an idiot,
vague, or a vague idiot? Then I realised the potential was in AI
characters telling their own story separate to that of the
protagonist's, intersecting when and where the player wants, and
there being consequences for those decisions. Story telling and
character design need not act at odds to developing AI, but can work
with it.
Forgive
the large number of Non-AI examples used in the first half; I feel
like examples of good design and dialogue without an emphasis on AI
would be an important contrast to AI-based solutions. I won't
apologise for making fun of Tropers, Power
Ranger
fans and Katawa
Shoujo
fans though; y'all are just asking for it.
A Future of Polygonal Friends: AI & Emotional Attachment (Part 2)
This piece is split into three parts (Part 1 is here, Final Comments are here), and was written for the Critical Distance Blogs of the Round Table.
In the previous part, we covered the following:
- Great video game stories need a varied cast.
- But games often have identikit characters that only feel superficially unique.
- To give characters depth, they need unique and varied dialogue.
- But dialogue reacting to context is very uncommon.
- Characters that say little or repeat often are very jarring.
- Dialogue trees are a possible solution, but have limitations.
Those issues can be solved with some experienced and skilful writing, but there’s a way to both alleviate those flaws, and progress in interesting directions – the inclusion of AI.
What does AI entail?
Artificial Intelligence is essentially a system of search engines. Put that way it’s not particularly glamorous, but that’s the truth. Artificial Intelligence has been around since the 1950s, and has been the target of obsession by both engineers and science fiction writers of varying quality.
Artificial Intelligence is essentially a system of search engines. Put that way it’s not particularly glamorous, but that’s the truth. Artificial Intelligence has been around since the 1950s, and has been the target of obsession by both engineers and science fiction writers of varying quality.
While a lot of our modern technology already has a measure of AI to make our lives easier (even the Auto-Correct on your phone is an AI), we romanticise the idea of social, humanised machines that can be our best friend – or cruellest enemy. And autonomously at that. This is definitely relevant for video games – any character action that’s designed to happen in a way out of the player’s control – however slight – is the result of AI programming.
Narrative writing and AI are not necessarily mutually exclusive. It’s a reasonable point of contention – “How can something not controlled by the player be part of the story?” Most games keep story and gameplay as separate concepts – since if the story is places out of the players hands, there’s the chance that they could actually miss out on the story – a scary thought. However, with a little experimentation, and some advances in how we can program and utilise AI, we can blur the line into something unique.
What makes ‘em tick: AI and interaction
NPCs don’t mean a whole lot if the player can’t interact with them. In the vast majority of games, this details ways to fight or kill them. Not a whole lot of design is required to make a to-be-killed NPC 'convincing', as long as their demise is satisfying enough - but for NPCs that exist outside of a need to be mowed-down, the bar is suddenly set a lot higher for responses to player input. Hell, even major names in the games design industry are starting to recognise how important, yet how undervalued NPC AI is.
NPCs don’t mean a whole lot if the player can’t interact with them. In the vast majority of games, this details ways to fight or kill them. Not a whole lot of design is required to make a to-be-killed NPC 'convincing', as long as their demise is satisfying enough - but for NPCs that exist outside of a need to be mowed-down, the bar is suddenly set a lot higher for responses to player input. Hell, even major names in the games design industry are starting to recognise how important, yet how undervalued NPC AI is.
This is largely down to empathic reasons. We as humans intrinsically know how rational people react to certain situations. If we help someone they're grateful, if we tell a funny joke they laugh, etc. So, when a character - especially an NPC in a game with a narrative focus - behaves in a way that isn't rational human behaviour, it's jarring. When used intentionally it can create an effective unsettling mood; but often occurrences are unintentional, and it breaks whatever 'immersion' the player might be having with the setting.
The problems I’ve brought up in the previous part are closely related to this jarring feeling. Homogeneous characters don’t feel convincing when we know how people can vary so much in real life. Characters with unchanging disposition feel like the Terminator (with maybe fewer homicidal tendencies), and ones with unchanging dialogue are just that much more two-dimensional.
AI can definitely be handled badly. 2005's Façade was a breakthrough in AI and interactive drama, but its open-endedness was its downfall (to ignore the bare bones graphical presentation). Harassing the confused AI became something of a Youtube fad.
AI and Character Design
Building on the concepts brought up before, this matters to character design diversity since people with different backgrounds are obviously going to think differently. It’s one thing to have a game character act uniquely within the plot, but when it comes to general gameplay, they often behave just like any other ally or enemy. It’s common in RPGs where you can give instructions to AI allies that different allies will act in the same way if given the same instruction (discounting things like different equipment load outs).
Building on the concepts brought up before, this matters to character design diversity since people with different backgrounds are obviously going to think differently. It’s one thing to have a game character act uniquely within the plot, but when it comes to general gameplay, they often behave just like any other ally or enemy. It’s common in RPGs where you can give instructions to AI allies that different allies will act in the same way if given the same instruction (discounting things like different equipment load outs).
The Sims is the all-encompassing example about AI’s effect on character design. Any given character in the game is a bundle of personality traits and quirks, which manifest themselves in any action a Sim will take, even in subtle ways. The Sims 3 raises the curtain a little on how this process works – the player can select five specific personality traits when making a Sim, so the effects of these choices are more obvious. And with the 63 different Traits to choose from (and that's not including the expansions!), you’ll be hard pressed to get two Sims alike by chance.
Charismatic, Dislikes Children, Neurotic, Perceptive, Schmoozer. Me in a nutshell, really.
Applying this to characters out of the player’s hands is definitely an interesting direction to go down. Party members that are different in every way, right down to how they deal with a problem would make them so much more distinct. If these personalities were randomised from game-to-game, no two players would have the same experience.
AI and Character Dialogue
AI matters to dialogue variety because no one maintains a single way of speaking. We change how we talk depending on who we talk to, or just how we’re feeling at the time. It’s jarring in a game to do something that upsets a character, only for them to go right back to a neutral attitude afterwards.
AI matters to dialogue variety because no one maintains a single way of speaking. We change how we talk depending on who we talk to, or just how we’re feeling at the time. It’s jarring in a game to do something that upsets a character, only for them to go right back to a neutral attitude afterwards.
Animal Crossing, while very simple from a technical perspective, tries very hard to use dialogue and AI effectively. There are only 6 different personality ‘types’ in the game, which over 200 possible villagers can use, but you only ever deal with up to 10 of them at a time, masking the potential repetition. There’s an incredible amount of dialogue, tied to the weather, the time of day, if it’s a special holiday, if the villager is happy or sad… the list goes on. They will even talk to each other, and let you eavesdrop.
To create variation within a single conversation, dialogue trees function perfectly fine in a very controlled way, but the content of a dialogue tree doesn’t often change according to any context other than ‘state of the main plotline’. What’s more, dialogue trees only work if the player is present. Gaming narratives are often incredibly solipsistic – nothing can happen if the player isn’t there to witness or directly affect it, and that’s not how a believable world can function.
The Witcher 2 at the very least uses its dialogue trees in a way less transparent to the player, and with some neat consequences. The small, but incredibly important decision to not display whether a dialogue choice is 'good', 'evil' or otherwise tied to a game mechanic (which many games are guilty of) means that the player isn't so easily yanked out of the narrative when making a decision. What you do decide on ends up having further-reaching consequences than just the next line of text, as characters remember how you treated them, and will pass on the word of how much of an asshole you are to their peers.
Taking a cue from Animal Crossing’s book, and having conversation dialogue triggered by the state of the game world, and using Witcher 2's system of making sure your decisions are remembered down the line, will obscure some of the ‘branches’ of the dialogue tree from the player’s view. Guy Hasson put forth a theoretical way of managing dialogue trees that operate through more than just what the player does.
For those that don’t warrant complex dialogue trees, there are still solutions to give them variation. Here, randomisation is the key – Procedurally Generated sentences. What’s that? Well, since sentences (in any language) have a logical structure, having a computer construct unique utterances from word and phrase banks will save you from ever hearing a “Welcome to Cornelia!” more than once. It’s a solution that rules out voice acting (it’s hard to get artificially constructed voice sample utterances sounding convincing without some heavy editing and knowledge of phonetics), but it still has a definite future in RPGs.
AI and the ‘Simultaneous Story’
Animal Crossing and The Sims use AI in a way that creates robust characters, but they can act freely in a game with no overarching narrative. This isn’t to say that those games should adhere to a plotline (the spinoff Sims games that do are… tepidly received), but the big ‘future of video game AI’ lies in the combination of the two.
Animal Crossing and The Sims use AI in a way that creates robust characters, but they can act freely in a game with no overarching narrative. This isn’t to say that those games should adhere to a plotline (the spinoff Sims games that do are… tepidly received), but the big ‘future of video game AI’ lies in the combination of the two.
The key to more convincing, immersive worlds is that it doesn’t expressly revolve around you. Other characters doing their own thing independently of you are only the start. If these characters actually acted out their own stories incidental to your actions, it would be an implementation of subplots on a scale that books and movies definitely can’t match.
It’s an old title, but The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is a very well-made example of a ‘simultaneous story’. Almost every character in the game has an intricately detailed life and schedule. Thanks to the strict three day timeframe the game takes place in, the NPCs can be given pre-programmed daily schedules, so their lives can unfold out around the player.
This is where the line between story writing and AI crafting is blurred a little. With the technology available at the time, having the characters act uniquely and randomly would be too much for the poor old N64, but by framing the NPC actions around set narratives, the amount of AI coding was a lot less intense, and the player has the ability to visit the same events again and again from different perspectives (as they learn more about the plot as a whole).
The Dead Rising titles all function on an in-game clock, with game events tied to it. Plot events will happily occur without you if you aren’t there to intervene, resulting in missed plotlines to major changes like characters dying. The first Dead Rising was incredibly strict with its time limit, making it nearly impossible to see absolutely everything in one run (you are, after all, a reporter – not a superhero). It's a shame that then, for the most part the survivors you encounter are there to be escorted to safety, and not too much else.
AI and the Visual Novel
I feel like a side mention should go out to the Visual Novel. As the name suggests, it hugs a lot closer to literary storytelling, and for the most part forego AI in its entirety. Likewise, Point ‘n’ Click Adventure games are the text adventures of yore with a graphical polish. This gives them a lot of flak from consumers and critics – how could a genre survive when, in terms of technology, they are so undemanding?
I feel like a side mention should go out to the Visual Novel. As the name suggests, it hugs a lot closer to literary storytelling, and for the most part forego AI in its entirety. Likewise, Point ‘n’ Click Adventure games are the text adventures of yore with a graphical polish. This gives them a lot of flak from consumers and critics – how could a genre survive when, in terms of technology, they are so undemanding?
Interestingly, that may be their strength. They are the Dialogue Tree to the extreme – everything is precisely controlled and scripted. But with that, it also means that there is so much more room to write their plots and characters as carefully as possible. They have no veneer of complex gameplay, and often can’t hide behind flashy graphics. The Ace Attorney games and the Monkey Island series contain some of the most complex characters in gaming, at least in terms of background detail and motivation. If any genre is to go the distance in creating deep and empathic NPCs within a narrative, you bet it’ll be a Visual Novel or an Adventure Game.
That, however, doesn’t mean that AI can’t make them more robust experiences. What the characters do when the player isn’t talking to them is just as important as the face-to-face chatting. Christine Love proved that with the background-running social networking in ‘don’t take it personally babe, it just ain’t your story’. Dating Sims corner the market on major characters that interact with the player in ways other than dialogue trees (meaning statistically, not carnally you pervert), but NPCs having a ‘memory’ for what you do and say would be both a lot more involved, and avoids simplifying the nature of relationships to “Choose dialogue option B”.
The future of AI
So what's happening next in the world of video game AI? Well, if you have the free time, take a look at Prom Week, a cute flash game that takes up the idea of generated conversations, and lets you experiment with them, reminiscent of The Sims, but with actual dialogue. Designed by Mike Treanor and a small crew of game designers from Santa Cruz university, it constructs sentences to feel unique, based on context, and how interacting characters feel about each other. The game challenges you to set up the characters to certain goals, but it's still relatively easy to orchestrate the right outcomes since the behaviour feels so genuine.
So what's happening next in the world of video game AI? Well, if you have the free time, take a look at Prom Week, a cute flash game that takes up the idea of generated conversations, and lets you experiment with them, reminiscent of The Sims, but with actual dialogue. Designed by Mike Treanor and a small crew of game designers from Santa Cruz university, it constructs sentences to feel unique, based on context, and how interacting characters feel about each other. The game challenges you to set up the characters to certain goals, but it's still relatively easy to orchestrate the right outcomes since the behaviour feels so genuine.
Prom Week is about its AI system through and through, but you only need aspects of its concept to bring an old game somewhere new. Imagine if LA Noire remembered the reputation you made for yourself; carrying out your investigations kindly, with ruthless efficiency, or like an Actual Cop.
The biggest AI breakthroughs are going to take a long time, and it might take even longer to use them to craft a game world that tells a really great story. A game where the subplots both operate independently of the player, but are also organically reflecting the player choices is a risky, big budget venture. And NPC that truly feels like a person when held up to the cold harsh light of gameplay may never even happen. But I remain hopeful. One day then, my enjoyment of video game stories won’t feel so sordid.
Read on to Final Comments.
Read on to Final Comments.
A Future of Polygonal Friends: AI & Emotional Attachment (Part 1)
This piece is split into three parts (Part 2 is here, Final Comments are here), and was written for the Critical Distance Blogs of the Round Table.
Introduction
Some people read Playboy for the ‘articles’. Some people watch films for the celebrity roles. I play games for the story writing and characters. It’s my dirty secret.
The quality of script writing in games can barely even scratch the quality of what would constitute a ‘good’ film or novel, but I have a major soft spot for when a game wants to spin me a fable, or endear me to characters. Because writing a decent script for a game is apparently so damn hard, the industry focus is elsewhere; AAA titles push heavily for graphical fidelity and larger worlds to explore.
I feel that the next big step for games is improving how they tell a story – and that’s not just a plea for the industry to wean me off my addiction to charmingly ineffectual narratives. There are so many ways to go about stepping up the storytelling in games, critics could write (or argue) about it for months, but here I’m going to focus on character-driven storytelling.
To support a great character-driven narrative, you'll need... well, great characters. But if the only properly fleshed-out character is the protagonist, a player will have a hard time getting emotionally invested. While a well-written character in a story or a film can feel believable just by just watching them, video games are an interactive medium. We can prod a character, and we watch how they react with scrutiny.
In those cases, traditional writing can only take you so far – it’s the Artificial Intelligence of a game character that breathes more life into them.
But before I talk about what we can do with AI, there are some key topics aspects to cover first, more to do with writing skill than technical – and will use some examples from games where AI isn't a factor. It will also bring up potential writing and design problems that we'll come back to in the second part. All in good time.
Variety is the spice: Character design of the cast
It's very easy to formulate a cast of characters for any video game setting. The number of RPG characters with almost predestined personalities to fit in with their profession; the hardened crew of soldiers in any FPS (don't forget the token black one!); the full rainbow of 'sexy' feminine personalities the hero can bump uglies with. When you’re trying to get the character design process out of the way so other aspects can we worked on (which is a terrible idea by the way, but it definitely does happen), falling back on a familiar pattern to construct a cast is a tempting idea.
The laziest pattern is what I like to call 'Super Sentai casting'. Did you ever watch Power Rangers as a kid? Or maybe you're an adult child and are still watching it – whichever. In every series they have a cast of around five, and their characters are the result of some kind of MadLibs-by-committee, something like this:
___ is one of the ___ youths with attitude, representing the colour ___ and the legendary ___. Their general passion is ___, and they're the ___ of the group.
Pretty ridiculous. What's more ridiculous is that video games, even ones that are meant to be heavily character-focused, still write their cast like this. Take Katawa Shoujo (lit. ‘Cripple Girls’):
___ is one of the students at a school for the disabled. She suffers from ___ but wants to ___ in spite of this. Her ___ reveals her 'true beauty', and you help her with ___ so you can eventually get up in dem guts.
What these MadLibs designs lead to is a homogeneous cast. Everyone being of the same demographic leads to pigeonholed personality traits to set them apart. (The Japanese Otaku culture has a huge number of words to describe these personality tropes).
Even otherwise good games can fall victim to it. Persona 4’s main cast is all very similar in age, background, and role in the story – though that’s partially down to thematic reasons, and they are instead humanised by putting their insecurities at the forefront. ‘Tough, but Kind-on-the-inside’ Kanji isn’t an especially complex character, but the struggles he has with his sexuality are very human and identifiable.
It means that in the end, you’re asking people to empathise with an idea; a cluster of memes and implicated cues, rather than an honest attempt at making something human. Chicken Nuggets compared to an actual chicken. This works out okay in some situations – and for some people – but some stories just cannot be told effectively with a hollow or homogeneous cast.
It means that in the end, you’re asking people to empathise with an idea; a cluster of memes and implicated cues, rather than an honest attempt at making something human. Chicken Nuggets compared to an actual chicken. This works out okay in some situations – and for some people – but some stories just cannot be told effectively with a hollow or homogeneous cast.
The very best game casts have characters from all walks of life, so not only are they unique physically, but their experiences and world views are also in contrast. It can even help improve games that are otherwise lacking.
For example, take Lux-Pain for the DS. A Visual Novel, it wasn’t incredibly well-received due to haphazard mechanics ideas that don’t go anywhere, the cheesy premise of a high school-aged secret agent investigating mysterious goings on, and an absolutely god awful English translation. And yet, its wide and varied cast gave it some serious charm. You encounter students, teachers, shop keepers, even television personalities – and underneath the… unfortunate dialogue, there’s some simple but passionate backstory and character motivation.
Shunichi Inagaki is just your average nightclub owner – he's not even connected to the mystery Lux-Pain revolves around. But he's still appears, going about his daily business. As you talk to him, you find out about his family, his relationships with other members of the cast – and if you take the time to read the dossier files that slowly fill in as you play, he's rather ham-fistedly implied to be gay. Appreciated, though not artful. As friendly and relaxed as he is, not even Shunichi manages to escape the bad translation.
The translation team was apparently a group of around 10 in India. It shows.
Bioware’s Dragon Age and Mass Effect series get huge fan followings for their cast alone. In both the Grey Wardens and your interstellar crew, you are partnered with casts so diverse, they aren’t even all human. On a level, that feels like a slightly cheap way of adding cast diversity, but it does give scope to including perspectives that can’t be (safely) attributed to human culture.
The lack of diversity in video game casts is very much a social problem, and game designers limit themselves – or try to diversify and fail – for a few reasons. Maybe they’re not confident in writing characters of a demographic different to themselves. Maybe they don’t have the time and resources to design complicated casts (in which case they should probably manage their budget better). More likely, they’re fearful of what might happen if they don’t pander to the less-than-liberal consumer base that aren’t interested in characters that don’t fulfil their power- or sexual-fantasies. Or the TV Tropes crowd who can only process media that’s heavily compartmentalised.
The quality and diversity of a cast is only going to change significantly when social attitudes change, and the ETA relies heavily on your optimism.
Words, words, words (and actions): Dialogue style and variation
A problem that affects all media is dialogue diversity – it’s not uncommon to have a work where all the characters speak in a manner very similar to that of the writer. The writer knows how they sound, and so by writing in their own ‘voice’ as it were, it’s easy to write in a way that’s (superficially) convincing. But when too many characters sound similar, the suspension of disbelief falls apart, and no one sounds convincing.
In practice, this only really affects games without voice acting – with the dialogue voiced, characters will naturally vary linguistically (unless all characters are voiced by the same actor, but that would just be silly). So in a way, technological progress in game design has solved this one. But there are obviously still instances where games can’t afford – or just don’t need – voice acting, so bearing this in mind is still important. 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors has a wonderfully varied cast – and a very good story in general – but due to the game’s philosophical (and pseudoscientific) themes, all the characters know a whole lot about prosopagnosia or Ice-9 for reasons not always explained, and sound very similar when discussing it.
Who would think that this lady had just explained 5 minutes worth of 'morphic resonance'?
Furthermore, it’s not just how a character speaks, but how often. It’s difficult to love a character who doesn’t communicate with you very often (not that it stops fans from writing smutty fanfiction about them, but still). ‘Communication’ need not require dialogue (an obligatory mention to Ico and Journey here), but even then, a limited range of expressions can leave conversations one-sided, and characters feeling flat.
A game could have a wide range of NPCs, and have them be story relevant, but if they say precious little, or worse, are prone to repeating the same thing often, then it drags you out of the experience; the grand play ruined by a cast member repeatedly yelling about mud crabs.
Catherine handles dialogue incredibly well. It has a lot of dialogue with characters that are incidental to the overall plot, and they continually change what they have to say over the course of the game. Obviously they have a limit, but the game sidesteps a situation where the player unintentionally causes dialogue to repeat by marking when a character has said all the useful information they have to offer.
Limited or repetitive dialogue is eased in many modern games by having dialogue trees in major conversations (which has definite flaws; I’ll elaborate in the second part). At the very least it ensures that the major characters don’t just exist to spout the minimum of dialogue to push the plot along, but it would be a total failure of pacing to employ this with every single character in a game, along with taking way too much effort to implement.
Okay, that covers the ground work. In the second part, I’ll be talking about AI as a concept, how it relates to the above, and where we can go from here.
Read on to Part 2.
Read on to Part 2.
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