Everyone that watched the Microsoft Press Conference last night couldn’t help but be impressed with the Milo demo from Peter Molyneux and the Lionhead team.  Despite only having the dev kit for a small while, it appeared that Milo, a brave new venture in AI, really was as smart as he looked with quick responses and a genuine feeling of next-generation technology.

However, a few journalists got change to demo Milo later last night, including Kotaku, who, whilst impressed overall with the tech,said that “there was a little awkwardness” when Milo had said each section, implying that the demo was “partially being manipulated by a developer who was sitting nearby.”

Naturally, nobody really expected everything that Milo was doing to be realtime and generated by a single Xbox 360.  Yes it could handle the graphics, yes the motion tracking was sublime and the ability to pick up the colour of the Kotaku reporter’s shirt was impressive, but as the website says, “I couldn’t tell if [the developer] was merely calibrating the game or how much he was pulling its strings.”

http://www.thesixthaxis.com/2009/06/02/milo-isnt-real/

What?!?! He wasn't an AI being that could respond correctly to everything a person did?!?

Phew, he isn't skynet after all

it was like a video and the people in the movie were acting along with it

Dude, you are destroying everything I believe in.  I thought we were about to have shit like the holodeck and stuff.  Damnit.

You're being kind of unfair, Solid_Snake4RD. The Kotaku article mentions awkwardness in reference to the way that Milo was waiting for the player to say something. As in, he would speak, and then wait for a response. The author of the article felt a bit awkward during this silence. It was pretty obvious to me that this is what he meant.

The guy manipulating the game was a separate issue. But as he says, he had no idea how much or how little influence that guy was having. I don't think all of this fakeness stuff is warranted, especially considering the rest of what the article has to say.

^ No the Kotaku article said Milo smiled at him as he was speaking. It never said he responded. It also said that the best part was where Milo complimented him on the color of his shirt. Hardly reacting to anything he did or said.