What, How and Why?

What.

The purpose of this system, which I have given a placeholder name for--Project Barton, which is a reference to a name in an old sci-fi book--is to bring a fictional character to life.

I want to create an experience where a real person can get immersed in a virtual world through the relationship they build with the characters who live there.

On a smaller scale:

I want to create a cohesive, immersive experience where the player can interact freely with an AI NPC that doesn't immediately ruin the whole thing for them.

On a greater scale:

I want to prove that AI can be used creatively and ethically. The AI inhabits the narrative we create--not the other way around--and acts purely as a conduit for designers to tell a story to the player.

The AI will not be used to generate the narrative, and will not assume the role of writer, designer, artist or director. It will not replace the role of any potential human being and will be used purely to do what would otherwise be impossible by human standards.

And on a personal scale:

I want to give developers the means to populate their stories and bring their characters to life.

Imagine a movie set. Two actors are preforming a scene, and every now and then the director pulls one of them aside and gives them some motivation on how to act. Then the scene resumes.

Try to see the Barton system as this: the game developer is the director, who whispers in the actors ear and gives them context and lines. The actor being directed is the AI, who acts according to what the developer wants it to do. The other actor on set, who the AI talks to, is the player character.

What all this looks like behind the scenes of a game is essentially a screenplay being written in real time as a conversation happens. The player writes some dialogue, and then the AI writes some dialogue. There are annotations in-between the lines where the screenwriter gives some context to the scene.

Now, although I think that metaphor is nice, I understand that it might be a bit confusing. If it is, think of it like the show Impractical Jokers. The player is the random person in the supermarket, the AI is the guy pulling the prank, and the developer is the guy in the prankster's earpiece.

If it's still confusing, don't worry. There will be plenty of documentation to read through and hopefully that will be enough.

When I was a kid, I played tons of RPGs. Narrative was like an escape for me, and I enjoyed immersing myself in the fictional world and imagining my kid-self as a part of the cast of characters. I found I could more easily immerse myself in RPGs where the player character was a silent protagonist, which meant they never spoke. PCs like Link from the Legend of Zelda and the Trainer in any Pokémon game were the easiest to project myself onto, as opposed to "speaking" characters like those in Skyrim or Fallout. 

The Elder Scrolls method of having specific dialogue options is innovative and wonderful in its own right, but doesn't allow for player expression on the scale of a child's imagination. That childish dream of having a conversation with someone within the fiction world is part of what motivated me to create this system.

Another reason is that the power of AI is too tempting. I've always been an avid science fiction reader, and the fact that such a huge leap in technology has occurred within my lifetime is incredibly cool. On the other hand, that technology has since only ever been used creatively for plagiarism, and keeps popping up in useless places everywhere for commercial gain, to the point where every single encounter with an AI in day-to-day life is an annoyance.

Some people attribute this feeling of resentment towards AI itself, but realistically the AI is merely a tool being used by bad designers or corporate bosses who see AI as a replacement for human beings. You could argue that the AI itself is an amalgamation of stolen text and art from the internet, to which I would agree. But if a tool like that could be used ethically--not promoting the stolen art, or creating a facsimile of a real person's creative work--it could be something wonderful. It could be a tool that creators have never had access to before, to create artistic experiences beyond the scope of what was previously possible. It could be a voice, a conduit through which story can be told in a new way.

My goal is to create a conduit through which a storyteller can speak to the audience directly, and break the boundary between player and player character.