Sine Wave Actorbots
January 22, 2008 
By Osprey Therian
Sine Wave is developing something they call actorbots - bots with a bit of AI which can perform tasks in machinima or in other roles such as greeters, and Easy Babcock demonstrated the alpha stage project on Sunday. The first use that occurred to me was virtual sex-slaves in virtual brothels - and I commented how these would become sex toys for noobs. That might be inevitable, although Easy said he hadn’t been approached by anyone interested in that aspect, yet.
I was a volunteer to interact with a football-playing bot, and was impressed with the way it moved and chatted in IM. Sine Wave made a machinima using the bots that is rather good, too.
I can see people using them as machinima actors, except it would take a lot of the interest out of filmmaking, to me. NPCs - well, if DarkLife wanted to pay 5L/hour (or write their own code) they could certainly use them for shopkeepers. I’m not against the idea, or think it won’t be a successful project, however for me I feel it diminishes rather than enhances our world.
Easy Babcock watches his actorbot.
The actorbot paces and a brave woman approaches.
The bots have a crude AI and can be programmed to use chat or IM.
He looks aware - but there’s no one there.
Dancing - one thing out of many the bots can do.
