Is all population in SL real humans?

[badwolf007]

I was wondeing if for example, we visit a world, are all habitats humans, or is the AI cretaing some random umber of people leaving there too?

I'm asking that as I am thinking to create a business where I will need hundreds of people to take part, AI or real and I am not sure of it'd be possible.

For example, from your previous answers (thanks for your time), if I need a skill I do not possess, then I can hire somebody.

If I need groups of people, e.g. to create a 5x5 footbal league, can I hire only real humans/SL players or are there AI players I could hire as well?

[badwolf007]

I was wondeing if for example, we visit a world, are all habitats humans, or is the AI cretaing some random umber of people leaving there too?

I'm asking that as I am thinking to create a business where I will need hundreds of people to take part, AI or real and I am not sure of it'd be possible.

For example, from your previous answers (thanks for your time), if I need a skill I do not possess, then I can hire somebody.

If I need groups of people, e.g. to create a 5x5 footbal league, can I hire only real humans/SL players or are there AI players I could hire as well?

[Vulpinus]

The only 'AI' avatars that I'm aware of are called bots. They are nothing special in themselves - they are normal avatar accounts on SL I run a few sometimes.

They don't really have AI unless you can program them to do something - you would have to do that. There are simple 'viewers' than let you log these 'bots' on without any graphical interface and you can issue commands to them from a web page or in-world, like 'sit here', say "this", hand out these leaflets to every visitor...

Lots of stores have them.

Some bots are used to perform land surveys, some bots are bad! ... but only because they are programmed to be.

Search 'bots' on the forum, and see these links:

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Second_Life_bot_software_comparison

http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Linden_Lab_Official:Bot_policy

 

[Rolig Loon]

Yes, AI is possible in Second Life.  Take some time to read up on pathfinding, for example, or use Google to look for all of the ways that creators have tried to bring AI into our world.  Also, take a look at what can be done with bots, which are regular SL accounts that are used to control scripted avatars -- as greeters, models, etc.  You'll find some pretty amazing stuff.  None of it is as amazing as people, though.  A soccer game with NPCs would be boring, but one with real people behind their avatars is fantastic.  Go to a game in SL sometime.  They're fun to watch.

You are struggling with a basic concept, I see.  You are thinking of a corporate structure as your model for doing things.  That is fine for Real Life, but not well suited to SL.  Everyone here is an independent contractor.  Nobody has to work.  People choose to work because it suits their own purpose.  You can hire me to write a script for you, but I will never be your employee.  I work for myself.  So do most creators and merchants.  We work together, not for each other.

[Theresa Tennyson]

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badwolf007 wrote:

I was wondeing if for example, we visit a world, are all habitats humans, or is the AI cretaing some random umber of people leaving there too?

I'm asking that as I am thinking to create a business where I will need hundreds of people to take part, AI or real and I am not sure of it'd be possible.

For example, from your previous answers (thanks for your time), if I need a skill I do not possess, then I can hire somebody.

If I need groups of people, e.g. to create a 5x5 footbal league, can I hire only real humans/SL players or are there AI players I could hire as well?

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There is no "AI" in Second LIfe as a part of the system. Most avatars you see are controlled by humans; it's possible to have "bots" that are run by a simple computer program from outside Second Life but technically those avatars are exactly the same as any other ones.

There are also simple AI "pets" that exist in SL (I have a cat, for instance) but they all run scripts written by users.

With the way Second LIfe is set up having a large number of avatars in any given place will tend to cause problems.

Do not think of Second Life as a game. There is very little that you will get for "free" from the underlying "rule system." Everthing in Second Life exists because a user made the conscious decision to make it.

[Nalates Urriah]

The answers are all technically correct... but I'll try saying it another way to see if it makes more sense for you.

First, not all avatars are run by humans. But, most avatars in SL are the same basic avatar.

We have avatars that are by all practical definitions the standard avatars that we all use, but which are controlled by a special viewer with various AI capabilities depending on the brand of viewer. The 'BOT' viewers have programming capabilities and various features built in. Some can even carry on a convincingly human-like conversation. I've never seen one that provided convincing human-like movement. They can follow you around or run away or walk a predetermined path, but little more.

I haven't used any of them. So, I can speak to how well the AI is implemented. I do know the various brands of BOT control viewers are mostly retail products, which you buy from third parties.

Pathfinding allows one to use some sophisticated Linden server side processes to animate the movement of a prim or mesh 'thing'. The behavior of the 'thing', other than movement over the ground, is handled by LSL scripting. So, the AI is very limited because of LSL's limitations.

Pathfinding provides a sophisticated way to have the 'thing'' follow, run away, patrol, or wander around while avoiding things and people in-world. It takes a huge amount of the programming load off scripts animating a 'thing'.

Movement and animation can be scripted via LSL without the use of Pathfinding or BOT controller viewers. It is limited and such scripting would never fool one into thinking the scripted 'thing' were a person controlled 'thing'.

In general the AI in SL is primitive. We have nothing like other games' non-player-characters (NPC).

[Lindal Kidd]

Even if you used scripted agents, "bots", to create your crowds of people, you would run into problems.

A bot is a normal Second Life avatar, with a user name and a password.  The only difference is that it's controlled by a program instead of a live person.  Second Life treats a bot just the same as an avatar controlled by a human.

This leads to a limitation.  The maximum number of avatars that a region can host is 100 (on a private estate region) and 40 on a Mainland region...and the region starts to experience severe lag well before that limit is reached.

So, even if you controlled a crowd of avatars as scripted agents, you couldn't pack a huge crowd of them into a small area.

The very largest crowd you could assemble would be 400 avatars or bots, by putting four regions together and crowding them all together at the center where the regions meet.  That's been done for some very well-attended in world meetings, but it's terribly unwieldy.