Now that the bartender is in, what's next for social AI? [Shopkeepers, air traffic controllers, other civilian roles?]

Yeah, so currently I'm working on this mess hall behavior. It's for Squadron 42, this very specific chow line, mess hall behavior, but all of this tech is very much geared towards eventually providing systemic stuff for the PU as well. So if you're eating and drinking, that's your activity. Yeah, eat and drink is your activity, and you want to satisfy your hunger, hooking all of the bits together, because we've had little bits and pieces here and there. We've got people looking like they're eating and drinking, but are they actually consuming the things? And are those things being done based on their current requirements, whether they're hungry or thirsty? So I'm bringing that behavior in for Squadron 42, but that will then key in, and some of our other designers are already working on, say, vending machines [...] and making pizza vendors, and turning the very core features and adding content to expand those to lots of different situations that can be used in the PU. So there's lots of little things that we're working out now that are going to then allow our animators and artists and everyone else to generate lots of really great content for the PU. So that's currently what we're working on with Social AI.

Yeah, we mentioned some other stuff as well, even in my monthly report. For example, we have some dancing behavior connected to what Andrew is working on. As he said, the activity eat and drink is basically what allows any character to replenish its sustenance. For example, if you want to use an arcade machine, sorry, an arcade machine is more for leisure. It's food for your entertainment, so it's still food. But for the vending machine, let's say you want to search for food. It's the same as when the bartender searches for who can provide the beer you ordered. This is why the bartender was so critical, because he offered so much functionality we use everywhere else. The bartender has the same things; for example, when the patron drinks, he can check how much the drink is going down. And Andrew will use the same for when you're eating the food: how much food do I still have to finish? And it's the same with the vending machine. It's like, oh, I want to buy some food. Where is it? Oh, it's in the mess hall, or it's in the vending machine, or it's in the shop. And then, based on where that is, we can execute different types of sub-activities that are, in essence, part of our behavior tree, behavior flow. It's really more like a behavior graph there. But then we can understand how to use that concept, that it's food inside of any machine, and now we want to interact with that and how we want to consume it. And then how you want to dispose of what remains. Like what you're working on, Andrew, even bringing back your tray. And it's the same as we have some trash can where, if you're eating a candy bar, then you want to throw away your wrapper. And I think this is all stuff that right now is possible also because of the bartender. The bartender takes the glass and places it back into the dishwasher. The dishwasher is just something that accepts objects and takes care of cleaning them up. So I think it is really opening up a lot of doors. Actually, what Dan mentioned as well, the refilling of the ammo clips, is the same. The ammo boxes are just usables that can provide you either bullets or magazines. That's just it. And then you as an AI can say, I need bullets, where do I find them? It might be another AI, it might be the ammo box, and then you execute the behavior to get what you're trying to get. I think this is going to be really interesting, because it really opens up this realism a bit more. And our game is very physical. So if the guy needs to get the ammo clip, there's really a magazine there inside the box, and if the player arrives first, he takes it. I think this is going to be really, really cool to see happen.

It's great to see these little building blocks of different behaviors, because we're putting them together now in a lot more complicated ways, so we can build on those successes and build that level up, and have someone who just says, I'm hungry, go through all of these sub-bits of logic, and it all suddenly produces lots of variety of behavior. I was even thinking, oh, if he's hungry, but he's not 100% hungry, he might not finish all of his food and might have to then dispose of that, or things like that. It's really interesting.

And the more time passes, the more you add. The idea at the end is about complexity. For us, it's building something that allows us to add as much complexity as we can over time. So if at the beginning you just go there and you finish all your food, that's fine. And then in the next iteration you say, oh, now we actually add all this kind of taste on top of the behavior. And then we add more complexity, and it just looks more and more real.

And with the systemic stuff as well, the food that you're eating isn't just making you hungry. It also might, for example, if you're drinking beer, make you drunk. And if you're eating it, it might be poisoned.