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Re: Event[0]

#2
Hmm. Nice concept.

It reminds me a little of Adr1ft, a "fix your spaceship to get home" game made by (among others) Adam Orth, the former Microsoft guy who caught massive flak for his #dealwithit Tweet about the rumor that the new Xbox (then still in development) might require an always-on Internet connection.
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Re: Event[0]

#4
Flatfingers wrote:In a Gamasutra blog, Katharine Cross really likes Event[0].

If you're willing to overlook the writer's tendentious insistence on using "them" and "their" instead of the genderless single-person pronouns "it" and "its," her take on the ship's AI NPC is an interesting perspective.
Not to start a flame war here, but 'they' is the widely accepted non-gendered third person singular. 'It' has never been a good way to refer to a person, and it's rather dehumanizing.

I'll see if I can dig up the cash to fork over :3
panic
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Re: Event[0]

#6
Mistycica wrote:Not to start a flame war here, but 'they' is the widely accepted non-gendered third person singular. 'It' has never been a good way to refer to a person, and it's rather dehumanizing.
No flaming from me.

I do not agree that "they" is either correct or "widely accepted" as a singular pronoun in English. Some people want to do this; they are free to be wrong if being readily understood is less important to them than advancing a sociosexual politics position by trying to subtly control the language rather than communicate openly and with intellectual honesty about their "shoulds" for other people.

In other words, regardless of whether I agree or not with any position, it makes me grumpy when people try to surreptitiously advance that position by unilaterally misusing the standard language rather than by directly describing their reasons for wanting other people to change. That's an attempt to control, rather than a willingness to trust, and I will always resist that.

That said, this only comes into play if one thinks of Kaizen as a person, rather than as a thing. It's not dehumanizing in any way to use the genderless (not gender-neutral) words "it" and "its" to refer to Kaizen if Kaizen is a computer program and not a person. (And even more so if we're talking about a feature in a computer game.)

So the question I'd prefer to focus on is how the developers of Event[0] are doing such a good job with making Kaizen resemble a person that the folks who want to misuse the plural pronouns (them, they, their) for every case feel it's appropriate to do so when talking about Kaizen. That seems like some pretty skillful programming.
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Re: Event[0]

#7
Flatfingers wrote:I do not agree that "they" is either correct or "widely accepted" as a singular pronoun in English. Some people want to do this; they are free to be wrong if being readily understood is less important to them than advancing a sociosexual politics position by trying to subtly control the language rather than communicate openly and with intellectual honesty about their "shoulds" for other people.

In other words, regardless of whether I agree or not with any position, it makes me grumpy when people try to surreptitiously advance that position by unilaterally misusing the standard language rather than by directly describing their reasons for wanting other people to change. That's an attempt to control, rather than a willingness to trust, and I will always resist that.
I'm sorry, but you're wrong here. "They" has been in common usage as a singular pronoun for centuries, although it's only recently surpassed "he" as the most frequent method of referring to a singular person of unknown gender. If you look up "they" in a dictionary, you'll find one of the definitions will refer to it being a third-person singular pronoun.

In fact, "they" started to be used as singular at around the same time as "you" did. Or wouldst thou prefer a second-person singular pronoun also? Perhaps one should also rely on indefinite pronouns, instead of the horrendous misuse of "you" that occurs there. And god forbid someone say, "To who am I sending this email?"

It's not misusing the language, or an attempt to control. The use of "they" has absolutely nothing to do with sociosexual politics, and everything to do with language evolution.
Games I like, in order of how much I like them. (Now permanent and updated regularly!)
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Re: Event[0]

#8
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
The singular they had emerged by the 14th century and is common in everyday spoken English, but its use has been the target of criticism since the late 19th century. Its use in formal English has increased with the trend toward gender-inclusive language.
Idunno, but I use it all the time and I'm not even a native speaker. Not for any trend of inclusivity either, just because I was taught that's what it's used for. (I always thought it neat English had it cause Dutch doesn't) :)
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Re: Event[0]

#11
DigitalDuck wrote: Synthetics aren't people, but sometimes it helps to humanise them as people are more comfortable talking to people than they are to objects.
synthetics arent humans but they can be persons.

if it talks like a person, acts like a person and thinks like a person (from the external PoV) why should i deny it the things i grant carbon persons without thinking?

what about people who had their brain/consciousness/neural network/blah transferred into a computer system? arent they persons anymore just because an indistiguishable copy of the same consciousness runs on a computer instead of wetware?

what about copies or manufactured consciousness' in a computer? why shouldnt they be persons?

they arent humans (anymore), granted. but that doesnt stop them from being persons.
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Re: Event[0]

#12
Cornflakes_91 wrote: if it talks like a person, acts like a person and thinks like a person (from the external PoV) why should i deny it the things i grant carbon persons without thinking?
There is an easy resolution to this 'are AIs people' dilemma: flip it around. If it's indistinguishable from a human from the outside, you can't tell if it has a consciousness or not - not even if it's an actual human. Maybe none of the carbon people have it at all, in the exact same way we could call an absolutely human-like AI an 'unaware simulation'.

There. Nobody's happy. Not that it matters anymore.

Nihilism aside, it's either both of us people, or neither of us, imho, when talking about the 'seemingly-strong' AI.
panic
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Re: Event[0]

#13
Mistycica wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote: if it talks like a person, acts like a person and thinks like a person (from the external PoV) why should i deny it the things i grant carbon persons without thinking?
There is an easy resolution to this 'are AIs people' dilemma: flip it around. If it's indistinguishable from a human from the outside, you can't tell if it has a consciousness or not - not even if it's an actual human. Maybe none of the carbon people have it at all, in the exact same way we could call an absolutely human-like AI an 'unaware simulation'.

There. Nobody's happy. Not that it matters anymore.

Nihilism aside, it's either both of us people, or neither of us, imho, when talking about the 'seemingly-strong' AI.

^ my thoughts in better words.


do not differentiate by what generates the appearance.
when it passes the 39943 revision of the turing test and appears like a person, call it a person.
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Re: Event[0]

#14
Mistycica wrote:
Cornflakes_91 wrote: if it talks like a person, acts like a person and thinks like a person (from the external PoV) why should i deny it the things i grant carbon persons without thinking?
There is an easy resolution to this 'are AIs people' dilemma: flip it around. If it's indistinguishable from a human from the outside, you can't tell if it has a consciousness or not - not even if it's an actual human. Maybe none of the carbon people have it at all, in the exact same way we could call an absolutely human-like AI an 'unaware simulation'.

There. Nobody's happy. Not that it matters anymore.

Nihilism aside, it's either both of us people, or neither of us, imho, when talking about the 'seemingly-strong' AI.
You solipsist :ghost:

More on-topic, game looks really intriguing. Might try it when it's on sale :)
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Re: Event[0]

#15
Katherine Cross has another article on the AI of Event[0] up at Gamasutra today.

This one includes a brief but detailed interview with the developer of Event[0] and the chatbot at its heart.

I find it interesting that the developer consistently refers to Kaizen as "it." Even more interesting, Cross herself in her next question to the developer refers to Kaizen as "it." Then, in her concluding comments (not addressed directly to the developer), Cross reverts to using the word "them" to refer to Kaizen.

I'm not going to editorialize about this. I just found it interesting, and thought others might as well. If nothing else, the developer's comments are pretty fascinating for anyone wondering how a chatbot becomes a game.

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