Educational Gaming Commons - Press Start

Bots, or robots, are a much-needed item in Second Life for complex simulations that require the user to interact with others. It's difficult to stage a complex simulation with live actors, but the advantage of doing so is obvious - there's a real brain behind the avatar/actor.

An alternative is to use bots. By attaching some clever response scripts to an inanimate object, you can create a reasonable semblance of interactivity. Some folks call this AI, or artificial intelligence, but it's not really that at all. It just a very limited set of programs designed for a very specific purpose.

For example, if you staged a disaster with real actors, they could respond to stange or "off the script" comments, such as a rescue worker commenting on your jewelry. A bot would simply not understand this - probably responding with a neutral comment that totally deflates and stops that particular line in the conversation.

Bots in Second Life are much needed for complex simulations that can be run by any one, any time. Some folks have dabbled with this over the years, but I've not seen anything of real promise, until recently. Check out

http://caledonianblogs.net/soh-secondlife/2009/11/02/aiml-test-bot-colin...

I hope Caledonian U contines to work on this and makes their efforts readily available. It would open up a new area for educators in SL.