Linden Lab Announces An Indefinate "Pause" On AI Characters Starting Sept 1

 

Those who worry about AI bots in Second Life can relax soon, at least for the time being. 

 

A few days ago, Linden Lab announced they would soon "pause" both the creation and activity of AI characters. 

 

... we are announcing a pause in the Character Designer experiment. Starting Sept. 1, the Character Designer feature will be turned off and no longer available.  

 

 This pause gives us time to carefully evaluate everything we’ve learned and determine how best to evolve this technology in a way that aligns with the broader future of Second Life.

 

What this means is those who have created AI characters will no longer be able to access them, nor can any more created. The Lab would also say characters and their memories would not be saved.  

 

Linden Lab would state this was not the end of AI in Second Life, but "a thoughtful pause as we refine our strategy and continue exploring new opportunities for innovation."

 

 For more information, check out the Linden blog entry (here). There's also a thread in the Linden forums (here). 

 

Bixyl Shuftan

 

Linden Lab Announces Then Pauses AI Character Designer

 

Several days ago, Linden Lab announced they were making available an AI Character Designer to Premium-Plus residents. 

We are making the Character Designer available on the main grid for early testing and feedback to Premium Plus residents. While we have completed initial internal evaluations, we encourage all interested residents to explore this alpha release, identify any issues, and share their input so we can continue refining the tool.

What is the Character Designer?

Developed in collaboration with Convai, the Character Designer empowers you to craft, customize, and animate virtual characters within Second Life. This tool is intended for developers, community builders, roleplay enthusiasts, and anyone looking to enhance their inworld experiences through dynamic characters.

Current Capabilities and Intended Use

The Character Designer provides a solid foundation for immersive roleplay, offering a range of features that let you shape and refine the personalities and behaviors of your inworld characters. Current capabilities include:

• Early-Stage Roleplay Support – Characters respond intelligently through IM, adapting and evolving as you interact.
• Custom Personalities and Backstories – Define unique histories, preferences, and communication styles to bring your characters to life.
• Integration with Existing SL Systems – Connect through a dedicated alt account, set arrival points, and fine-tune behavior filters for a seamless inworld experience.

This was quickly mentioned in the forums, where it quickly got hundreds of responses. Some expressed interest in the AIs. Some made jokes, "the thought of Second Life being so dead that they're trying to occupy its antisocial user base with chat bots." Some wondered if Linden Lab was doing this because AI was "the new shinny" thing in technology. But some expressed privacy concerns about private chats being exposed, "f that's not a password harvesting bot, I don't know what is.  NO WE DONT NEED AI." It was also brought up that anyone signing up to use one would be entirely responsible for whatever output it made, even if it wasn't it's creator's idea, "By agreeing to this, the bot, a literal black box I have no control over, can be made to say stupid **** and I would be entirely responsible for it. This is dead on arrival and has no place in Second Life as it's used. No one will want to take the risk that their store bot (perhaps in an adult store) can be coaxed into saying something truly reprehensible by a random stranger and then abuse reported for it, which as this is AI, should be pretty trivial." 

 

Finally after a few days and 17 pages of posts, Darcy Linden announced the new bots were being put on hold.

 

Hey everyone, thank you for posting in this thread and continuing the conversation!

We've taken your feedback and the Character Designer experiment has been paused while we retool.

I bolded experiment as that's what this is, and it's how we want to proceed with new ideas: get it out early, collect feedback, and optimize/terminate.

When we started this test, the goal was NPCs like Greeters, store clerks, quest givers, etc. It's a creator tool. The companions were an attempt to scale down as NPCs will require more work and this space is in its infancy. AI has been in Second Life for years now and this experiment doubles as an investigation into how we facilitate the allowing people to make cool experiences while respecting the rights and privacy of others. 

With that said, many creators have reached out to me personally with excitement and ideas.

———

AI in/for Second Life is NEVER meant to replace people. EVER. It is a tool, to help us connect, create, and explore.

———

This statement isn't a marketing ploy. We all understand the value (and potential dangers) of AI and are taking incremental steps to integrate these tools to help creators make the best experiences without having to toil over servers, load balancing, prompting, model selection/fine-tuning, and of course getting the characters to work in Second Life within the parameters we all deal with each day.

For the creators watching this thread and especially to those who make AI characters for advanced, narrative-driven NPCs in roleplay — we are attempting to make a tool that would potentially have a deeper integration than LSL can provide, and are not in the market to directly compete. If you are interested in shaping this product, I highly encourage you to fill out the following form and we'll be in touch: https://forms.gle/6w1X9PuFsAfsjxJk9 (heads up, I will be reviewing these).

In terms of data collection, the term 'harvesting' data came up. We work very closely with Convai and have complete control over the pipeline. To reiterate, data is not being used to train any models, it's not being shared, sold, or used in any other way other than to return a response. If something like confidential computing (where only you hold the keys to the conversation) is important to you, let us know.. That goes for any additional feature that would give the grid peace of mind

The thread was left open, and people continuing to comment, some expressing a little sadness the experiment was over. As of the writing of this article, it was 25 pages long. 

So for now, Linden Lab's AI experiment is on hold. For how long is unknown. 

To check out the forum thread, Click Here. 

Bixyl Shuftan

Second Life Blogger Network Put On Hiatus

 

A few days ago, Linden Lab announced on the official blog that they would be temporarily pausing the Second Life Blogger Network. 

As we continue to evolve and improve our various community initiatives, we have decided to put the Second Life Blogger Network (SLBN) on a temporary hiatus. This pause will allow us to dedicate resources to upcoming changes and enhancements designed to enrich our community's experience even further. 

 

We sincerely appreciate the incredible contributions that each of you, our esteemed bloggers, have made to enrich the Second Life community. Please know that this decision was made with careful consideration and is not a reflection of the value we place on your work. 

 

The Lab also stated they would be expanding the Second Life Weekly Email Newsletter, and invited people to use the Community Resources Portal. 

 

The Second Life Blogger Network was introduced almost five years ago, in September 2019.  

 

Hat tip: Daniel Voyager

Bixyl Shuftan

A Short Break From The Cartoons

 

Usually the Newser has two cartoons a week, a short chuckle for the readers that's sometimes an inside joke only we residents of Second Life can understand, and sometimes most anyone whether in Second Life or not can laugh at. But on occasion, we delay a cartoon, usually if someone passed away or someone close to the Editor is going through tough times. 

We've had a few less a couple weeks ago when one of the Sunweavers was going through tragedy. And now, not only is another going through sad times, but someone close to yours truly in real life has not been well lately. 

So a short break from the cartoons. Hopefully they'll resume next week, hopefully. For those who miss them, Click Here to look at the list, or Click Here from those recovered (so far) from the old SL Newspaper from 2007-2010.

Bixyl Shuftan
 

Second Life Blogger Daniel Voyager on Hiatus

One noted blogger about Second Life, Daniel Voyager, will be taking a short break. A few days ago, he announced due to real life events, he would be taking a break until sometime "in early 2020."

I have decided to take a break from Second Life due to RL commitments. Everything is good so don’t worry. Breaks are good and everyone should take them once in a while. 

I have enjoyed blogging about Second Life during 2019 especially keeping track of the new continent. The lab and the Moles have done such a great job this year.

I hope everyone has a great Christmas and a happy new year 2020.

Events This Week Temporarily Going Inactive

The "Events This Week" section hasn't been updated in a few weeks, temporarily shelved as the paper worked on articles delayed by the Relay For Life Weekend, and it's related news stories. Before and since, some of the locations outside the Sunweaver/Angels community where the paper is located have stopped releasing schedules of the week ahead, so we had to do an increasing amount of guesswork.

The section is temporarily going inactive, perhaps only until next week, perhaps a few weeks, perhaps longer. Time will tell.

Tiny Empires Back Up

It was something of a rough time in my home estate at Sunweaver, and presumably many others, as there are a number of players of the game "Tiny Empires" here, and for a few days the game was non-operational, the HUDs coming up empty when brought up. The local Queen gave the following message on January 10th, a day after the problems began:

The bad news is that there has apparently been a catastrophic failure of some kind in the Tiny Empires servers and they will have to be rebuilt ... The good news is that I managed to grab a good backup before the failure, so nothing in the Tiny Empires games will be lost. Your acres and gold are safe. ... it is looking like the game won't be running again until tomorrow. I am very sorry for the long delay. This is the worst downtime for TE in years.

Finally today, she gave a message in the game group to reattatch the HUDs. The game was working again, and all was well with the Tiny Empire players, once again looking forward to the next announcement of "Trader!"

*Update* Seems some players are still having difficulties, so perhaps it may be another day or so before it's truly fixed.