Thursday, October 16, 2014

Artificial Intelligence characters are fun!

Both my biotech/paranormal mystery Genome the novel and my SciFi series Arlo and Jake have AI characters. AI is a hobby of mine. I find it fascinating.

In 'Genome', the AI is called 'PIP' who interacts via a holographic avatar, while helping the main characters control a gymnasium sized holo-deck. 'She' also handles all of the bio genetics manufacturing facilities and lots more.

In the 'Arlo and Jake' series, AI's work and fight along side my heroes and also with the black hats. They come in all sizes and shapes, from the disembodied space battleship AI that communicates with them via an implant device, to the humanoid, autonomous cyborg servants.

Writing these AI characters has been one of the best experiences of my writing career. Of course it helps that I can write virtually anything I want, letting my imagination roam wherever it desires. And it's gone down some really silly trails at times, trust me. At this point in time I've decided to stay away from AI-AI relation ships, it's just too hard to make that stuff up. ;-)

One of the fun aspects of AI characters is how they would interact with 'bag of bones' characters. My first attempt was 'PIP' (it stands for Program Interface Protocol). She starts off as a straight forward Star Trekkie 'ships computer', living on a laptop. Her visible interface is just a 3 inch image floating next to the monitor.

As the story progresses, she matures in intellect and avatar abilities. It was so much fun to raise PIP from a simple sprite to a full blown hologram, working side by side with the main characters.

The AI's in Arlo and Jake run the gamut, from top of the line battleship AI's to silly cafe drink carriers. In this series I'm really stretching my AI legs. I'm always looking for ways to incorporate more AI interactions.

Why? Because in a few short years you and I are going to be surrounded by AIs and I want them to know that I'm a fan. ;-)

Be cool
Be happy
Be an AI buddy
Be!