Project Natal – Artificial Intelligence Like You’ve Never Seen

This is well worth a look if you’re interested in seeing where Artificial Intelligence is heading. If everything in the following video is true, we’re certainly in for a whole new world of interactive experiences – not just confined to the living room.

Project Natal is born from Lionhead Studios, a computer games company originally built and continued to be driven by Peter Molyneux, one of the most innovative and brilliant computer game developers.

I have no doubt that if commercialised in the right way this interactive vision has the potential to not only change the computer games industry, but to revolutionise anything from the way shoppers interact with products in retail stores (think minority report with a friendly twist), to the way the military might evolve their training simulators.

Imagine a technology like this learning who you are and how you interact with people and being turned into your own virtual character (avatar). Imagine this avatar  being unleashed into a virtual world, where they can be trusted to make purchasing decisions on your behalf in virtual stores. Allow your avatar to represent you as a personal shopper in a virtual shopping centre (Mall) whilst you get on with the more important things in life.

The question is this: as technology becomes this advanced will those children and adults who find socialising difficult further isolate themselves with an even more life like “virtual friend” – or could it be a route for socially aware developers coupled with leading psychologists to guide those who have these social difficulties into being more confident in their personal skills.

I’m impressed – possibly the most impressive piece of consumer focused technology I’ve seen in the last 5 years.