Artificial Life Meets Augmented Reality

Virtual Reality is nothing new. Technology amnesia makes it seem otherwise. One flavor of VR (virtual worlds) will have a come back - experienced in front of our eyes, through augmented reality glasses. New virtual worlds will emerge in the context of our existing world - along with embodied AI. In this talk, I will describe past artificial life research, and how principles of biological emergence apply to games and virtual worlds. "Self-animated" creatures are being developed at Wiggle Planet for use in AR. These characters are born in software: they do not require animators. Years before Pokemon Go came out, my team and I developed "Wiglet Hatchery" allowing creatures to be bred, released, and captured, using geolocation. The AI will expand, allowing creatures to acquire a kind of embodied intelligence, informed by their owners and real-world surroundings. New game genres will grow in this fertile soil.

Speaker: Jeffrey Ventrella, Author