Milo is Alive, and Will Soon Take Over the World

Peter Molyneux demonstrated Milo and Kate at yesterday’s TED – Technology, entertainment, Design – talk on human systems.

It seems that Milo isn’t just a creepy virtual child locked in a digital world – he’s a creepy virtual child connected to a cloud computing system and is able to learn remotely. Just a tech demo? For the end of the world as we know it, maybe.

Milo, as far as the story portion of the “game” goes, is a child who’s just moved from the UK to New England. Demonstrated for “less than 15 minutes,” according to Forbes, the “game” showed scenes in which Milo argued with his parents off-screen. Milo’s mother and father, like most parents today, both work leaving Milo alone for long periods.

A volunteer  player was seen talking to Milo about the argument and offering encouragement – helping ease his sadness. The volunteer cleared up Milo’s room for him while he was off-screen. Milo noticed this ad thanked him for his help.

The volunteer also taught Milo how to skip rocks and even asked Milo to squash a snail. After hesitating for a bit, Milo did just that. Creepy.

Molyneux revealed that Milo learns through a Cloud computing system, so as more and more people play the game, Milo’s intelligence increases. “This is technology making use of collective intelligence for play,” said Molyneux. “The world will end when machines become our sentient overlords,” I imagine he muttered under his breath.

Molyneux explained his reasons for making Milo and Kate: Firstly, to recreate memories of interacting with his father as well as to inject self into games.

“TV, music games, most of media, doesn’t include me and I loathe that,” said Molyneux. “I wanted to create a character that would notice me and look me in the eye.” “I love these revolutions and I love the future that Milo brings,” he continued.

Great. so because of Molyneux and his daddy issues, the world gets to be destroyed by robots. Thanks a lot, Peter.

Sources : Kotaku, Forbes

Last Updated: July 14, 2010