Sunday Pick: Could your new best friend be an AI-powered NPC? | The TED AI Show

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4.1 • 11.9K Ratings

🗓️ 8 September 2024

⏱️ 31 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Each Sunday, TED shares an episode of another podcast we think you'll love, handpicked for you… by us. Today we're sharing a special episode of The TED AI Show, our newest podcast about the technology that's changing our lives.

Non Player Characters --NPCs for short-- have always been a huge part of what makes video games engaging, from Cortana in Halo to Navi in The Legend of Zelda. But interactions with NPCs were always limited to a pre-written script. Until now. Purnendu Mukherjee is the CEO of Convai, a platform that enables developers to create NPCs with human-like conversational abilities. He joins The TED AI Show host Bilawal Sidhu to chat about our evolving relationship with "AI characters” and what we gain and lose when our digital relationships are so life-like, it almost doesn’t matter who (or what) is on the other end.

For transcripts for The TED AI Show, visit go.ted.com/TTAIS-transcripts

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective. Ted Talks Daily listeners, I'm Elise Hugh. Today we have an episode of another podcast
0:14.4	from the Ted Audio Collective handpicked by us for you.
0:18.0	If you've ever played a video game,
0:19.7	you've probably encountered an NPC,
0:22.4	a non-playable character.
0:24.8	You might have even tried to talk to them, but the conversation was probably limited to a few
0:28.7	clicks and a pre-written script.
0:31.4	Until now.
0:33.5	This week we're sharing an episode of the TED AI show and it's all about what happens when AI allows
0:39.6	NPCs to actually engage in conversation with users and what that means for the future of relationships.
0:47.0	If you want to hear more AI conversations, you're in luck.
0:50.0	There are two upcoming TED AI conferences this October in San Francisco and Vienna.
0:56.2	See our show notes for more info.
0:58.0	And you can also find brand new episodes of the TED AI show wherever you get your podcasts. Now on to the episode, right after a quick break.
1:09.7	It's the 26th century and you're moving through a world as a cybernetically enhanced
1:14.1	super soldier on the planet of reach. You have a big mission in front of you as
1:18.8	master chief you are the last hope for humanity against a hostile alliance of alien forces.
1:25.5	Only you can stop the Covenant.
1:28.0	Well, only you with the help of your trusty AI sidekick, a hologram with a cropped haircut and shimmering ocean blue skin, quartana.
1:37.0	Actually, it was 2001 and I just hooked up my Xbox to play the first series of HALO Combat Evolved.
1:47.0	I was 11 at the time, and my brother, our friends, and I would pile into our Punjabi
1:51.9	leaving room to play a campaign in split screen mode.
	...

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