Category: AI

Oblivion’s AI is still remarkable and still influences games today.

In the Imperial City Arena District, you can see an Argonian male and a Redguard Female fighting each other. They are not in combat but in a script where has them train each other in hand to hand combat at specific times of day. Watching them for a bit gives you +5 boost to your hand-to-hand combat skills; such attention to details and interaction with the world is rare in video games.

When people talk about video games outside gaming, it still seems to be in a time warp of the 1980s. Most of the media newsmongers have no understanding of video games or even seem want to care about it. There is so much potential in the medium, yet it seems to be ignored, which I think it is sign of how video games have retained their renegade status. While men in suits attempt to continue monetizing it, video games are similar in a sense to Gladiatorial games in Ancient Rome. In comparison with chariot racing, Gladiatorial games were not as popular but had more of a cultural impact that the elites did not want to admit. Video Games linger in the shadows of the more acceptable entertainment of Television and Movies. However, it’s in video games where we see the future of storytelling going towards, beyond the linear and static movies of the past. While movies have a place, the medium is so stagnant that there is little in feature films which can change. It is in video games where you see real change.

The change is in the graphics and more recently in the AI.

With all the hype surrounding AI or Large Language Models (LLMs), gamers saw the first salvo in the spreading of AI throughout our societies.

The Radiant AI in Oblivion and Skyrim were quite competent here. They are still in the early stages of showing us what is possible in video games. The cities and villages have more life than anything you see in Cyberpunk 2077, which for me was a big step down from we saw with the Witcher Games.

You can see the influence of Radiant AI in GTA VI’s ambitions.

Seeing the Argonian and the Redguard train in the arena was just the preview of how AI can transform games as much graphics were able to do so in the 1990s. We will have more than just games but living simulations.

The Google Empire: Why we need more search engines other than Google

The usage of “network” effect to basically dismiss calls for other search engines or any other institution is a common phrase. The people who use it to say there is something transhistorical about Google and that people should be just accept Google. The thing that Google has is the ability to just control the access to information and also installing their search services on every Android device here. Microsoft got in trouble for the same thing, but now they are basically the underdogs here in the search space with Bing, which is good but is basically unable to gain traction because Google keeps people within their systems. This means that people only see Google and not other competitors.

I use Google’s products as they are not incompetent at making email services such as Gmail. However, they are often used as the only service and the “nerds” or power” users are trying to use other products. For example, think about DuckDuckGo or other search engines such as Bing as I mentioned earlier. However, Bing is the only one that is capable of challenging Google. In the early 2010s, its market share was higher than it is now but it is unable to get beyond a small percentage.

We need more search engine choices.

Why is that we allow people to congregate in the “best”

This best is being propped up with all sorts of trickery and manipulations. The most important thing that can happen now is that we need to break up the app stores of both Google and Apple. This duopoly has allowed for the ossification of many aspects of the internet. It has led to the decline in the quality of desktop sites. Previously, desktop sites had all their charm and qualities. Now it the same throughout and it is not interesting now. Even the corporate sites, the front page of a company’s brand have become little more than portals to their social media sites.

We need competition and while we may have alternatives, we do not currently have competition.

Search engines should be an area of competition and growth and not beholden to only one company. The internet is a space without any limit in space only bandwidth. We should have many choices.

Tesla and Waymo wars ramp up in Austin with geofence expansion.

https://www.teslarati.com/tesla-kicks-robotaxi-geofence-expansion-into-high-gear-austin/

Tesla and Waymo are continuing to increase their presence in the Texas capital which has been a hub for driverless car experimentation. While America is somewhat behind China in the implementation of a revolution in auto mobility, we are seeing some changes here.

What I think will be most important here is that the companies have affordable rides for customers of every stripe in the city and other places. Safety is important but we also need to have people willing to take risks so that we become less reliant on cars and help to improve our urban mobility in this era of change. Hopefully, these rollouts are smooth and we are able to enjoy transport without the baggage that so often made our lives too chaotic. We may have a chance to be more creative and conscious of each other as humans if we can just take our hands off the wheels and enjoy our cities.