If software is eating the world, AI isn't far behind. AI-powered text-, art- and audio-generating systems will soon make -- and already are making -- their way into the tools people use every day, from programming environments and spellcheck plugins to concept art creation platforms. The video game industry is no exception to this, and that hardly comes as a surprise. As illustrated by games like AI Dungeon, AI -- while imperfect -- can inject surprising creativity and novelty into branching narrative storytelling. Inworld AI was founded on this premise.

Inworld, a Disney-backed startup using AI to create realistic non-playable virtual characters (NPCs), has closed a $50 million Series A funding round. The startup has attracted interest for its ability to design and deploy interactive characters with more realistic interactions across the metaverse and other virtual words like video games. In current video games, NPCs have pre-scripted responses. AI-powered virtual characters like those Inworld are developing can offer dynamic responses to general questions about the local area or wider world. While graphics have generally become more immersive over the years, interactions have largely remained the same.

If software is eating the world, AI isn't far behind. AI-powered text-, art- and audio-generating systems will soon make -- and already are making -- their way into the tools people use every day, from programming environments and spellcheck plugins to concept art creation platforms. The video game industry is no exception to this, and that hardly comes as a surprise. As illustrated by games like AI Dungeon, AI -- while imperfect -- can inject surprising creativity and novelty into branching narrative storytelling. Inworld AI was founded on this premise.

Here Inworld AI will use natural language processing, emotion recognition, reinforcement learning, and goal-directed conversational AI to enhance the cognitive abilities of virtual characters. Finally, "behavior is about the output or interactions of the character, such as speech gestures, body language, and motion." Technologies like state-of-the-art generative language models, reinforcement learning, and customized voice and emotion synthesis," enable virtual characters to replicate human gestures and behaviors. Together, these three components provide a solid framework for developers to build virtual characters that can respond in detail to natural language, perceive the digital environment, and offer significant interactions for users.

In conversation, mitsuku admits she does not know if her name has any meaning; this is simply what her father called her. Actually, she does not really have a father. She has a Mouse-breaker, which is technically not a person, either, but a team of programmers who like beer and curry and share a fear of Daleks (the evil alien robots from Doctor Who). Mitsuku is quick-witted, occasionally confusing, and strangely engaging. She is also a chatbot, built from the A.L.I.C.E.