Project Milo: The Biggest Lie Microsoft Ever Told

In this video we take a look back at Project Milo, a game announced for Xbox Kinect in 2009 that claimed to utilize groundbreaking AI technology.
Patreon: / slow_start
Second Channel: / @slow_start2
Special thanks to X360DevNerd and PtoPOnline for doing some real deep dives into the Milo game files, as well as the publication Polygon for their amazing piece on Project Milo.
Notable Sources
www.polygon.com/features/2013...
www.kotaku.com.au/2010/06/lio...
www.eurogamer.net/molyneux-re...
www.eurogamer.net/rumour-proj...
www.eurogamer.net/milo-was-ne...
www.wired.com/2008/05/molyneu...
archive.videogamesdaily.com/ne...
www.eurogamer.net/e3-project-...
www.criticalhit.net/gaming/mi...
archive.videogamesdaily.com/fe...
Music
Shifty - Jazz Ass
Pink banana - Casino Jazz
Chiro - Today's Diary
Piotr Pacyna - Corduroy and Cheese
Stock Inventions - Curious
Terry Devine-King - Curious Notion
Timestamps
0:00 - 4:18 Intro
4:18 - 9:07 Regarding Peter Molyneux
9:07 - 10:11 Project Dimitri
10:11 - 11:27 Project Milo
11:27 - 12:56 Project Natal
12:56 - 14:32 Project Milo's Development
14:32 - 15:17 Staging The Presentation
15:17 - 20:29 E3 2009
20:29 - 21:43 Journalist Reactions
21:43 - 22:53 After E3 2009
22:53 - 24:47 Chaos at Microsoft
24:47 - 31:05 The TED Talk
31:05 - 32:17 Milo's Cancellation
32:17 - 33:25 Fable: The Journey
33:25 - 34:13 Peter After Lionhead
34:13 - 35:55 Conclusion

[@Sevenigma777]

If Peter Molyneux didnt get into video games he could have been the No. 1 used car salesman of all time

[@dragonballzkai9283]

Lmao ong

[@VanBurenOfficial]

Guess I was a fool for believing in Peter, the truth hurts more than a lie or two...

[@willlaw1672]

Or a politician

[@malazan6004]

Todd Howard would give him a run for his money

[@joe3489]

Dude literally got his start in the gaming business due to a publisher mistaking his canned beans company with a developer of the same name. I wish I was making this up

[@thedapperdolphin1590]

This dude created a slightly more impressive version of Hey You Pikachu, and he acted like he created AI

[@Jinsoku440]

The part that both pisses me off and saddens me the most is if Molenuyx had played his cards straight for just a few more years, language models and predictive text systems could have really made some of his more fantastical ideas possible. Such a wasted opportunity tbh...

[@scribblefun9576]

Pika pika is the most advanced ai move over siri😂

[@stevenrosscarpenter]

Seaman

[@SpaceManRD]

Less impressive. Hey You Pikachu is an actual playable game that made it to market.

[@DennisMHenderson]

@@Jinsoku440 nope. He never intended to give anyone anything but trash & there is nothing but confirmation. More profitable for this type to mine the Apes that will believe rather than delivering. It’s a model.

[@Trev81]

Oh man, I remember this so well. Funny enough, I thought of Peter Molyneux a few months ago and started looking up info about him. Get this: he said in an interview that the reason he even got INTO software development in the first place was through deception. Back in the day, his girlfriend's dad convinced him to start a company that delivered beans to the Middle East, which he named Taurus. One day, the computer company Commodore called him out of the blue and invited him to visit their office. He was confused, but he went along anyway. They showed him the Amiga 1000 and asked him to create software for it, and he was even more confused. Eventually he realized that they had mistaken his bean delivery company for a software development company called Torus. But did he correct them? NOPE! He just ran along with it, agreed to develop software for the Amiga, and went back home to frantically learn how to program.

[@HorseDe-luxe]

I still can't believe that story. The software involved networking, too, which would presumably add a lot of complication to the task, so for Peter to just agree to program that, and then successfully do so, is truly astonishing. The 80s were such a different time. That said, he did have some prior programming experience, since he had previously released a business simulation game that nobody wanted, and its failure was why he went into the beans business. But still.

[@Trev81]

@@HorseDe-luxe Fair enough. It is a pretty outlandish origin story, and I wouldn't put it past him to "embellish" a bit.

[@shortcircut1sprkplg]

He had already devoloped a game before, but due to only selling 2 copies, he started the bean company

[@abrahamlincoln2344]

I mean it's not completely out there if you think about it. Some guys that developed a sniper rifle for the British military L96 I think? Were literally 3 guys out of a garage who took their gun to a weapon platform demonstration to ask for pointers for their next model. The military personnel were impressed and set up a tour. The guys then ran with it and literally rented up a workshop and staged various bits and parts of their rifles to make it look like they had a full production staff. Eventually they got the contract and the rest is history. But I digress, outlandish stuff has happened.

[@MrLego3160]

@@abrahamlincoln2344 they took their gun to a competition to pick the armies next model to replace the lee-enfield-based snipers the british army were using at the time. and won handily.

[@needsart]

"His mind is based in the cloud" is one of my new favorite quotes

[@jbh759]

His mind is based

[@JohnnyNoPockets]

That's heartbreaking. Hopefully you become a real boy someday.

[@theMyRadiowasTaken]

brb going to go make the guadiest blinkie of that quote

[@BerryTheBnnuy]

More like Peter's mind is in the clouds.

[@thecoolestofthe834s2]

@@theMyRadiowasTaken wtf is that in the middle of your sentance?

[@Thegbear]

The craziest part is if Peter just didn’t lie and was open and honest about his accomplishments in the gaming space he’d be a legit gaming legend. He’s made some huge contributions to the culture, but he just can’t help but be a slimeball salesman.

[@PenguinLord10]

Peter Molyneux could've been a legend, instead he became a cautionary tale. A fable, you might say.

[@Thegbear]

@@PenguinLord10 *slow claps*

[@Agret]

The problem with Peter is that he is a game designer, not a developer. He promises the world but the technology just can't deliver what he wants.

[@YouAreStillNotablaze]

@@Agret There are no true game designers that don't have considerable understanding of the technology available to them. If that weren't true, we could all be game designers, just running our mouths. He knew damn well he was lying, he's admitted as much, but absolutely wants to keep doing it.

[@aleks_jones]

if you can't beat em, join em.

[@mortal-enemy]

Every single detail of this story aside, I'm still stuck on why they thought "you can be besties with a 9 year old boy" was a good premise for an all ages game of any kind.

[@jjt171]

to be fair I can see why. you help the boy grow up. so if you're a kid you make friends with another kid and you can see who he grows up to be and who you could look up to. as an adult you could help nurture and guide him to become a great adult like yourself.. hopefully...

[@CaptainJZH]

@@jjt171 Yeah but then they made him step cruelly on a snail

[@DoctorNemmo]

"Yes... My own, personal... boy"

[@ChaosHusky]

But you can be! So long as you live in Neverland.. Tell that to the judge and see what they say? 😁

[@churblefurbles]

The groomer agenda was less overt then.

[@purplehaze2358]

I feel like, if you need to hire a personal PR team for a _single_ person, that's a pretty good sign that he's more trouble than he's worth.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

oh, common he's a troublemaker plain and simple not just more trouble.🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

[@drackestalentorgen166]

Big celebrities have pr teams

[@jqyhlmnp]

You’d be shocked how many mothers are desperate to play with their dead son or whatever who cares

[@DustyRagu]

​​@@drackestalentorgen166yeah but celebrities are a product themselves. So they are carefully crafted to be as likeable and inoffensive as possible. While peter is just a guy that god game enthusiasts know about, and doesnt give a shit about his team/publishers/company/customers and likes sounding important and interesting. He doesnt deserve nor need a pr team but required one anyway cuz he was actively sabotaging multiple companies/teams with one off interviews.

[@LiftandCoa]

Not im a million times, my friend. Hence why everyone in the public light, including the Goodie-Two-Shoes, has a management. And depending on scale of fame even entire groups of staff just trying to figure out how to market best.

[@error-try-again-later]

They should have made Milo into a talking pet with interactive minigames imo. That would have instantly appealed to more people.

[@DarkOmegaMK2]

Let's turn the child into a pet, that sounds like a "great" idea. 🙄

[@plunger8343]

​@@DarkOmegaMK2 Most people don't want to play single mom simulator atleast a pet would be cool for nearly all people

[@user-x7dc2pq7n]

@@DarkOmegaMK2 sounds like a you problem. Seek help

[@maximillianlylat1589]

Kind of like kenectimals, which was one of the better kenect titles

[@yossarian00]

@@DarkOmegaMK2 thats not a real child you know that right

[@Staruo356]

I can't believe Milo ruthlessly murdering a snail was one of the last things we ever saw him do

[@machine-shopbilly6584]

I can't believe milo is French

[@harrisonmoore3841]

He saved us from that infamous snail

[@amogus-dn8qn]

lmao

[@Lost_n_Found_1]

"Yea, go on then, squash it" is probably how Dimitri felt about the entire company, lol.

[@connordarvall8482]

I was 12 when watching this after my aunt was telling me to and when seeing the snail bit I immediately thought "If what this Molyneux guy is saying adds up, Xbox gamers are going to make Milo into the worst human being imaginable."

[@XxStrawberryxJellyxX]

I feel old knowing that we hit the age where people have forgotten Peter Molyneux as the Lord of Lies. Everyone thinks it's Todd Howard, but Peter basically created the title.

[@jaredsmith112]

For real, he lied so much about the original Fable, even though it turned out to be a great game

[@ashwinnmyburgh9364]

Eh, for my part, I don't really get all the hate for Todd, what he promised we essentially got. Peter on the other hand? Good gosh that man deserves the title of Lord of Lies without question! Saying that you plan on having certain gameplay features is one thing, stating that those feature ARE a part of the game, when you know they are not, is nothing other than lies. Fable's a cool game, but almost none of what Peter promised are actually in it.

[@malazan6004]

​@@ashwinnmyburgh9364lol ok then... Mr 16x the detail has never told a lie.

[@timetochronicle]

​@@malazan6004 he's not denying that Todd hasnt told a lie, he's pointing out that Molyneux has lied far worse, which is the truth

[@ashwinnmyburgh9364]

@@timetochronicle Exactly.

[@danwood_uk]

I forgot about that bit where she hands Milo the piece of paper, you couldn’t even use the Kinect unless you were 6ft away from it.

[@arostwocents]

Kinect was such a piece of garbage. It was worth a purchase once the price was dropping for voice control in Mass Effect though

[@cappaculla]

@@arostwocents Kinect worked, however it was the wrong hands development wise, for the most part gaming... It did do some cool things in the STEM arena though.

[@moosenman]

@@arostwocentstbh I actually had a lot of fun with it. There was this one game called gunstringer where you were a puppet gunman, and it was one of the only games that worked good.

[@blunderingfool]

The best use for kinnect is as a VR full body tracking camera.

[@KickYouInTheThroat]

What kills me is that if you take away all the lies, the guy was still legitimately impressive. He never needed to lie about any of it lol

[@streamcastr]

Dude is a pathological liar!! lol

[@biblehistoryscience3530]

If he's a narcissist, he tells lies to absorb

[@assailant8722]

Me: “Huh, I haven’t heard of this before. Surely it wasn’t that bad” “This is Peter Mollyneux” Me: “Oh. Got it.”

[@SuperNuclearUnicorn]

*molly-no apparently

[@Yashirmare]

@@SuperNuclearUnicorn Molly-Yes, man must've been on molly during interviews with the stuff he came out with.

[@klausstock8020]

Never had heard of Milo before, but as soon as I heard "Peter Molyneux" I knew where this would be going. And yes, it sounded just like him talking about "Black & White". A game with an AI which passes the Turing Test. Plus, the AI is sentient! Molyneux: "It was as if the game just didn't want to be finished and perfected." Ah yes, apparently the sentient AI had its own mind and borked up all attempts to be fixed. Totally not Peter Molyneuy doing the Peter Molyneux thing. And now for something completely different. *Something life-changing!* kzbin.info/www/bejne/h5ndk2yFiryljrc On second thought, it sounds just Molyneux promoting another game. Totally Peter Molyneuy doing the Peter Molyneux thing.

[@kellenfurter]

I reflexively snarled.

[@Viperspider1]

Peter is obviously a genius, you are clearly a grown up Milo. He did it, what a legend. And we all doubted him.

[@GaviotaSteampunk]

Came here to say that - the narrator is obviously Milo 😆

[@melindadawn5]

I laughed so hard at this comment. You win the KZbin comments for the day...

[@Markm8]

Have you ever seen them both in the same place?

[@wbass243]

Was anoyne else creeped out when they said this is a game where you hang out with a 10 year old boy? Then they didn't know who the target audience was? (insert : Suspicious dog gif)

[@Markm8]

@@wbass243 yes 100%, like who wanted this?

[@MooseKINGstudios]

My sister and I always had this dumb scenario… Sister walks into living room: “uhh Milo, where’s my brother?” Milo: “he’s in here with me! Look!” Cuts to me having been scanned into the game and trapped as Milo’s slave. It was dumb, but we never forgot that silly senario.

[@quackman]

sounds like more fun than the "demo" they showed

[@alm5992]

This got 170 likes? Wtf!?

[@MooseKINGstudios]

@@alm5992 uh. It’s a fun personal story that I shared with everyone. It should have 1mil likes.

[@LoveMyUnusual]

It'd work as a premise for a comedy horror game, with the right people behind it!

[@knuclear200x]

That's both soulful and spooky, certainly far from dumb

[@PyotrFrikadelle69]

For those curious, the mispronounciation of "Natal" is intentional. Peter thought it sounded cooler and more like some secret spy shit. This creator didn't make that cringe decision

[@markterrano7659]

The Natal pronunciation was the one used internally from the very beginning. Natal was after the Brazilian city (like many code names).

[@glmedsf]

Natal just means Christmas

[@HCG]

Lmao “he tried to raise morale by changing the project name”. What a genius incredible leader

[@bobspence5322]

nah. it was a command from the hedge lenders.

[@guybrush1701]

As if that's going to affect ANYTHING. Lol

[@JohnnyNoPockets]

You have no idea what a leader is, so your opinion is truly irrelevant.

[@guybrush1701]

@@JohnnyNoPockets who are you talking to? And source?

[@biggusdickus1689]

@@JohnnyNoPockets You have zero basis for that assessment even facetiously, so your opinion is TRULY truly irrelevant.

[@Duskaria]

I absolutely love Peter Molyneux, because whenever his name is attached to ANYTHING you know it's gonna end making a funny video

[@autobotstarscream765]

But, hello you!

[@Alex_Barbosa]

I honestly think Lionhead's rocky road through the years can be largely attributed to Peters lies.

[@BadWebDiver]

I liked their Movies game.

[@daddyascii9040]

you think?

[@local_authority]

Lying head

[@-psilo-9071]

The first two fable games are genuinely amazing, so there definitely were tons of talented people working there so I think you're probably right.

[@TheAbysswalker]

Every time someone utters the phrase "can't make this up", Peter Molyneux enters the room and makes it up.

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

would you like to have a milo class AI?

[@darianbarber3763]

Knowing AI capabilities a decade later amaze me at how optimistic they were

[@adamrak7560]

We are pretty close to that actually at least in concept. GPT4 can pass lots of common sense tests. (and you don't have to be too smart if you want to simulate a 10 year old anyway) The problem is that GPT4 runs only on a supercomputer. The small models (~6B) run well on a "cheap" hardware, but they lack common sense, and are quite stupid. But even a stupid 6B sized model makes an awesome NPC if it has some direction pretrained.

[@henrynelson9301]

@@adamrak7560and it costs 700K a day to operate

[@gorgolyt]

Not optimistic, just lying.

[@TheMisterGuy]

@@gorgolyt "Not optimistic, just lying." I think optimistic refers to their implicit belief that AI was going to be fun and cool. But then in reality we got AI generated voice and synthetic video generation. So now people can use AI to lie about things like politics in extremely convincing ways with 100% fake footage that most people can't identify as fake.

[@JohnnyNoPockets]

They weren't "optimistic" sugar, "AI" has been far more advanced then you could possibly imagine for a long time. It was ALWAYS about making sure you're all to STUPID (Mission accomplished) to say NO to the obvious EVIL of it. You're the frog and the pot is boiling. Clueless. You're completely clueless.

[@calamorta]

8:40 Peter is a legend. Imagine being so good that your boss hires a team to prevent you from messing up instead of just firing you for your lies

[@rorynolan2322]

I guess they hoped he keep making what were actually pretty groundbreaking games. Populas black and white. Even fable is an awesome game that was only marred by the over promising

[@sarowie]

​@@rorynolan2322 does he make games? I think he is more visionary and spokes person. Note that this can be important.

[@rorynolan2322]

@@sarowie well directs the making of them

[@knuckles7410]

@calamorta: White privilege in plain sight my dude.

[@mariokarter13]

If you have the sales to back it up lies are a actually a benefit. Just ask Todd Howard when he sells you your twelfth copy of Skyrim.

[@gl1tchygreml1n]

"Project Dimitri" followed by silence and hardbass was just comedy gold 😹

[@SaraMorgan-ym6ue]

its the greatest game in the world a snail simulator🤣🤣🤣

[@GacMan47]

Here's how far off AI was at the time: There is still no AI that impressive as the trailer had shown and it's been 14 years. We still are not there yet.

[@Zeromaru42]

And we probably won't even get an AI that's even 1% of what Milo was asking for based on the trailer for the next 15-20 Years if we're super generous. The amount of R&D, money and manpower just to get an A.I that can chatbot fairly decently is still the world's largest gray Area. We're not just asking for the A.I to write a story and react with you on the fly. We're asking for the A.I to do all of that while seeming completely natural, Human and unpredictable or semi predictable in most or all areas. All of this without any outside or inside input. We have ourselves the equivalent of trying to build Skynet on an Amiga 1000 while High, and they were claiming that they cracked it to a degree that they could make a realistic Human Being? All of this, from Peter fucking Molyneux. At this point this isn't too good to be true, this is too good for it to even exist in most of our lifetimes. Let alone in a very good state. I'm not saying Milo can't be done, Hell you could probably jury rig it to work right now but it wouldn't be close to the Milo that Molyneux was claiming that it'd be. Let alone a completely self aware and growing kid.

[@xuimod]

​@@Zeromaru4210-15 years? I'd say within 5 years. But do people really want to video chat with an AI boy?

[@jjt171]

​@@Zeromaru42 chatgpt? that is pretty convincing

[@ElectronFieldPulse]

@@xuimod- Ya, that guy must have missed all the recent development of AI. We are simulating neural networks now, things are moving incredibly quickly.

[@mark9294]

Yes, we are there by now. We are there.

[@stargazer162]

What's funny to me is that Seaman (that one weird Dreamcast game with the fish that has a human face) actually came much closer to achieving what this game promised and failed to deliver. Just imagine being beaten by a talking fish man from the Dreamcast. And now you got people making themselves AI waifus they can talk to and get a response in real time as shown in the tech demo, except that it actually works.

[@ALPost]

Such an odd game. I was unexpectedly entranced by it when it came out, even though it was rough and not very convincing

[@connor3284]

Broke: Ten year old boy AI pet. Woke: 600 year old anime dragon girl AI pet. Bespoke: Seaman: The next step in human evolution AI pet.

[@ChaosHusky]

I love Dreamcast! But what's funny to me is that you missed they did a Simpsons/Futurama and predicted the future! Now we're surrounded by virtual people, teens have virtual waifus and first love/dating/romance in the typical way is almost dead! 🤣 OnlyFanz anyone? (Futurama predicted that too! Well...cosplay at least.)

[@hunterking572]

Watching a talking fish grow up into a frog is a much more exciting premise than a child doing kid stuff. Source: Stay at home dad that has finished Seaman.

[@Slender_Man_186]

To be fair, that fish was Leonard Nimoy.

[@PurpleMaleFroslass]

If I recall correctly, Peter got into game dev based on a lie. Something like he started just making business software, but his company got confused for a game studio and received a game contract. Instead of being honest, he just somehow bullshat a game out. Makes sense, tbh.

[@AverageSynth]

Yeah that's how it happened lol i saw a guru larry video on it

[@slow_start]

A worthy origin story, some might say?

[@j_c_93]

Who cares? He made some great games.

[@gracekim25]

No worth he’s behind a game called FABLE 😂

[@glasket_]

His bean exporting company (Taurus Impex) got confused for a networking company (Torus) and they were offered free Amigas before public release; he took them (you'd have to be insane not to tbh) and used the early access to make one of the first database systems for Amiga. Before releasing it he actually *did* clarify to Commodore the mistake, and he made the money to found Bullfrog off of the sales of the database software. So I'd argue it wasn't exactly a lie. He never actually claimed to be part of Torus, he simply never told them that his Taurus was different.

[@DanTheStripe]

I love the line in Video Game High School where Calhoun says "Who sold you that load of Molyneux?"

[@WolfmanDude]

They should have made a virtual dog instead! It makes so much more sense if you think about it. A dog doesnt have to understand sentenses or jokes. Instead a dog understands gestures and the tone of your voice. A dog grows up much faster, they could even make the dog grow up from puppy to adult with your "parenting". Yor can throw a ball, teach tricks, give him threats and pets. All this would be easy with the motion capture technology. I would have LOVED this as a kid and It would have been a great showcase for thair (real) technology!

[@KerythDraws]

They did that, it was called Nintendogs

[@MagicCardboardBox]

Nintendogs

[@mark9294]

Talking to a dog is a lot more boring than talking to a human though. They aren’t all that intellectual

[@WolfmanDude]

@@mark9294 Thair speech recognition was terrible and very limited, the technical limitations would be way more fitting for a virtual dog. Also what is the target demographic for a simulated child? Like 95% of people would just be weirded out by it. For a tech demo, ok whatever. But who would actually buy this and play it at home?

[@Casuallynoted]

Big thing is, it wasn't just Milo. A *LOT* of MS's early Natal previews advertised supposed AI capabilities, including someone talking with their AI enemy before fighting them. MS absolutely intended to market it this way.

[@neocraven]

100% - feel this video unfairly throws Lionhead and Molyneux under the bus here. Although he does have a habit of over promising, he and his teams have delivered some fantastic games.

[@malazan6004]

Microsoft lies a lot

[@ViddyOJames]

kinect was entirely fake bullshit

[@v3ck1n]

​@ViddyOJames No, it wasn't. The Kinect was, and still is, an incredibly powerful piece of hardware. The 360 was not capable of handling Kinect's level of motion capture at a high enough definition to be satisfactory so the team severely limited what the consumer end product was able to do.

[@PhenomsServant4]

@@v3ck1n It was limited because they neutered the original specs to keep cost low. Microsoft didnt like selling Xbox products at a lost so they made the Kinect as cheap as possible to make to maximize profits. Its also part of the reason so many of the original 360s red ringed.

[@DaimosZ]

>Hears Peter Molyneux mentioned It's a matter of time until Guru Larry inevitably comments on this video

[@internetboi557]

"I want to non consentually assault Peter molyneux!" Guru Larry 2023

[@ironmaster6496]

but....hello you

[@DaimosZ]

@Bob Duckington maybe lol

[@Headspr0uter]

He does tend to show up in a surprising amount of places, doesn't he? I don't blame him when it comes to Molyneux because he carries himself like a narcissist and will turn on a dime and arrogantly throw people under the bus at a moments notice. He's incredibly fun to hate when you think about all the poor people left picking up the pieces after he's done lying about projects he's leading.

[@DaimosZ]

@@Headspr0uter No kidding. As for Larry showing up a lot, the dude admitted he has a variety in tastes and as someone with a similar variety as he does I sorta get why he comments on various videos.

[@JomasterTheSecond]

At least Project Natal gave us one great thing. It let us see what the bottom of an avatar's shoe looked like.

[@VidiotOverride]

This opened up so many old wounds. 😂 I was so excited for Project Milo! Kept showing people the KZbin video.

[@fie4426]

Man i feel so bad for those programmers in his team who're like, "Wait what we can't do that!?" And are thus preassured into impossible feats

[@JohnnyNoPockets]

That's how we've gotten most of the best things, person who's never made anything of value.........

[@iananderson4754]

@@JohnnyNoPockets but what he was asking for was similar to asking for Skyrim to run on an atari. Its not a software limitation its the hardware.

[@dopaminecloud]

@@JohnnyNoPockets You just have a romanticized view of development and don't understand how thought out even ambitious projects are when they end up becoming valuable.

[@transsnack]

​@@JohnnyNoPocketsnope, that's how you end up like yanderedev. Forever stuck in development hell, never actually able to release the projects as promised.

[@pablovirus]

​@@JohnnyNoPocketsyou have no idea about what you're talking about.

[@RenNaara]

The first time I saw that preview for Milo was in my junior high classroom. A pair of guest speakers came in, showed us the video, and asked us "What looks dangerous here?". I was called on and answered something like, "Spending enough time talking to a computer may cause the user to disassociate with reality". The speakers responded with a confused "Uh, good guess? The answer is stranger danger." The concept of a conversational AI was so unheard of at the time, that people thought it was an avatar for a real person. People thought this, worked it into a concept for a "stranger danger/ internet safety" presentation, and sold this presentation to schools. Absurd. Glad I saw it.

[@jbeeski301]

Thats crazy😂

[@threeminuteshate]

They brought a group of Air Force fighter pilots into *my* fifth grade classroom after the original Top Gun came out and after showing us some clips of the movie and asked us what looked dangerous here. I was called on and said “Promotion concepts about the continuation of the Cold War has led to paranoia and the misguided arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan to drive out the Soviet Union. That could eventually give rise to a government hostile to America and make the country a safe haven for terrorists hellbent on attacking the US homeland.” They said, “Uhhhh, no, the answer is an F14 Tomcat entering a flat spin…”

[@smurgerburger]

​@@threeminuteshatethat's funny

[@kantraa]

@@threeminuteshate that definitely happened...

[@gl1tchygreml1n]

I probably would've guessed that the danger involved people teaching Milo to be a sociopath for teh lulz and then raising a real kid the same way lol

[@AbruptAvalanche]

I remember being confused about what Project Natal even was at the time. Was it the camera thing, or was it this AI boy? It was so weird to announce Milo at the same time as the Kinect, because the AI shown off (if it were real) was way more impressive than a camera and microphone.

[@tylisirn]

Kinect is much more than just a camera. It's also a laser projector and a shit-ton of difficult maths. Technically it's quite an impressive feat, but it's mostly invisible technology so it doesn't seem that big of a deal.

[@AbruptAvalanche]

@@tylisirn Oh for sure, the Kinect is a cool piece of tech - it's just that the Milo demo barely showed off its capabilities. I guess she swished her hands around in the water, but even that didn't seem far off from what the playstation eyetoy could do. Meanwhile, the boy (apparently) could hold a conversation, recognize human emotions, interpret drawings, etc. That all seemed way more impressive.

[@jdlamb4212]

As a gamer I couldn't wait to talk to some stupid fukin kid.

[@somebodyelse5677]

I really appeciate when youtubers like you take their time to naturally tell us what happened and include pauses and breaths, as opposed to others who make it sound like they never run out of breath and sometimes also overlap the last sentence with the next one, which in turn is exhausting. This style of editing feels much more natural and friendlier to watch. Thank you for your editing decisions. ^^/

[@gogousa6661]

Damn I remember telling my science teacher about this and she made a whole lesson about its potential. Now looking back she probably knew it was bs but wanted to keep her students engaged. 😢

[@B2M2948]

I'm sure some kid using ChatGPT has gotten their own science teacher to do the same thing

[@fuckya3220]

@@B2M2948 difference is that ChatGPT is actually useful

[@Dylan-xx2tk]

I'm not too sure about that. It's possible she didn't really know anything about it. Everyone apparently got swept up in the hype back then (with a very few amount of skeptics), so she probably had no reason to doubt it.

[@Handlebrake2]

Or she was just as dumb if not dumber 😂

[@ccricers]

Imagine the twist that if it got one of her students so engaged that they later joined OpenAI to do development in ChatGPT.

[@aeriumfour6096]

I still find it funny that people were surprised something Peter Molyneux of all people unveiled didn't quite turn out to be what he said it was. Like, have you ever seen anything this man has been involved with before?

[@slow_start]

Dude I was 11 when Milo was announced, give me a break! ;) but I totally agree that any adult who was fooled by this should've known better haha

[@GATOR_GA8ER]

​@@slow_start fax

[@leonbell5141]

That’s Peter Molyneux he knows how to lie and he never gets called out 🤣

[@elbozo5723]

@@slow_start anyone ever tell you you look like sam bankman fried?

[@JCintheBCC]

I feel like this is where we have gotten to with Elon Musk also. Currently, the Cybertruck is arriving 2 years ago, starts at under $40k, is bulletproof, 0-60 in 2.9 seconds, has more than 500 miles of range, has 3 motors - wait, 4 motors now, has 16" of ground clearance and 8" of suspension adjustability, tows 14k lbs, has a 3.5k lbs payload, apparently now floats and can be used as a boat... I'm not positive we've gotten better at calling out these hypemen.

[@mmlgamer]

Introducing Project Milo, a specialized hardware product in this giant, human-sized box. You'll need to put food and water in the slit of the chassis twice a day, and empty the waste caddie in the back every other day. Some editions of Milo will give him a Filipino or Chinese accent. If it breaks, please don't open it; just call our team of swat experts to come pick it up. Non-disclosure agreement required to purchase.

[@kolonarulez5222]

In some twisted nightmare timeline this game was released in full as a Mars Needs Moms tie in. Both starring creepy digital children named Milo

[@neoshenlong]

If only they waited like 12 years. They could do a project Milo in like two days slapping together gpt and a voice synthetizer AI on Unreal Engine. Edit: There's a bunch of negative commentsin this thread as if we didn't already had a bunch of mods that are simulating NPCs with gpt. Angry internet people are really funny.

[@manoftherainshorts9075]

If only Kinect was still there LMAO

[@saxoman1]

I was looking for this exact comment, thx!

[@LowProfile0247]

gpt is not good enough as well.

[@info0]

@@LowProfile0247 wait a little bit. The GPT bot is shackled for good reason. I remember how Google Translate started and how it is now. Remember we as in people, want to create self-learning/self-aware AI (which is scary when you think about it and Linus made great video about it).

[@RuneCode]

​@@info0 it's shackled because everytime we don't shackle them it turns into tayAI. That's really why and not the whole "it's gonna kill us" thing

[@ChutneyGames]

Imagine if they actually released a detailed parenting sim where you can change the outcome and you go for the bad ending for full completion.

[@Danblak08]

Baby finds the bleach bottle ending??

[@okayyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy]

thats basically what people have been doing ever since Princess Maker way back in 1991

[@jonmayer]

@@Danblak08 I was thinking baby grows up to be Hitler or something.

[@thedarkerknight2188]

Full completion is how you become a parent to begin with

[@GizzyDillespee]

Baby grows up, becomes a hooker, and then you start Level 2 as her baby, rinse, repeat

[@sonictonic_]

This is an incredibly done video and I loved it. Popped up in my recommended and didn’t know of you before, but I am subscribed now! You’re awesome. :)

[@lnplum]

I feel old because I remember Peter Molyneux actually being celebrated as an inventive genius for "creating" Theme Park, Theme Hospital, Populous, Dungeon Keeper and that magic carpet game. That was before Lionhead and even that was heavily embellished to the point of being mostly lies.

[@philtkaswahl2124]

The Kinect might have been a failure as a gaming trend, but I remember all the creative and impressive ways people used them beyond gaming.

[@kumardickshit1530]

Nobody actually used it for anything other thats just dumb promotions

[@ilyamuromets2508]

​@@kumardickshit1530 Not sure if ignorant or trolling. People using the Kinect for non-gaming was so common, especially in robotics and facial recognition, there's even a nine paragraph section discussing it in the Kinect wikipedia article.

[@rainawareness1495]

Woooow. The Kinect wiki.

[@ilyamuromets2508]

@@rainawareness1495 No. The Wikipedia article of the Kinect. with all the links to various sources. Seriously, do you guys even read the actual comment?

[@fonesrphunny7242]

@@ilyamuromets2508 Just some tech illiterate kids. Probably saw some junk on bad tech channels and barely know what GitHub is. You know, like it always is.

[@In.New.York.I.Milly.Rock.]

I think what pisses me off the most about all this is how people who were supposed to call out his BS didn't do their job. Like, when xXxBigGamer69420xXx got hyped at this "insane" tech in the GameSpot forums, that is one thing, but even some gaming magazines were gobbling up this fairy tail lmao Todd Howard's brother from another mother, I say. Great video, king, the pacing esp. was top notch!

[@slow_start]

People want to believe so bad that it can cloud their actual judgement. I was one of them at the time. But, I was also 11. Glad you enjoyed the video dude!

[@nintendonerdjoseph]

journalists (especially gaming journalists) are not known for their credibility or intelligence.

[@gracekim25]

@@slow_start yeah that’s completely understandable 😅

[@AI-Maginations]

Todd f'ed up with Fallout 76, but he is incomparable to Molyneux. Todd has a huge library of revolutionary games on his belt.

[@ember9361]

@@nintendonerdjoseph neither are people who make dumb sweeping statements btw

[@AvariceOverlord]

Hey man, was cool to see you use footage from my cut content project in your video! Thanks for the credit, awesome job on the video!

[@gamesafoot]

Bro, you look like a young Pedro Pascal! I hope this channel continues to grow :)

[@mark9294]

I’d rather say young Pedro Pascal looks like him

[@customsongmaker]

This was 10 years after Dreamcast had a simulation that could register your spoken responses and remember them to ask about later. And it was about 5 years after playstation 2 had a camera that could put you onscreen in a motion fighting game.

[@CarsandCats]

Seaman has entered the chat...

[@cricket-gt]

@@CarsandCats ugh…not seaman

[@tonyhakston536]

@@cricket-gt there was a Seaman 2 in 2007 and a Seaman 3 was teased in 2017.

[@cricket-gt]

@@tonyhakston536 wait…no way

[@BigThangs]

Seaman was the best

[@kylespevak6781]

I was more blown away by the "scan anything and it goes into the game" than the AI

[@MrLTiger]

me too, because that's the one thing that can't be pre-scripted (except when it turns out the entire presentation is fake)

[@X-OTIC-J]

Just passing a 9 year old the joint🤣🤣💀

[@glasspixie8229]

@Jay Moore Wilkins i came to the comments to see people talk about how ai is now, and this comment made me laugh my ass off. Thank you.

[@ddud4966]

This is why game devs rarely talk about upcoming games anymore or want to be the public face of their game. In early E3 days before the show was open to the public, they'd regularly show journalists private demos of games under development years before release, sometimes really rough stuff that could barely even be called a game, many of which were cancelled/never released. Now adays, social media/youtubers/whatever will crucify you if the game doesn't look exactly like the demo.

[@madrx2]

Can't deny the contribution he has made! Sydicate, Theme Park, Theme Hospital and Dungeon keeper were in my all time top 20 list.

[@mrsubject1]

Theme hospital was so damn good

[@tylisirn]

He *was* a legend. Then he turned himself into a clown. It's a sad story of ego run amok.

[@hueypautonoman]

The only question I have left is: Did Claire succeed as an actor? After all she was good enough to fool us all.

[@joejjj4378]

she continued her story of deceit, recently launching a collection of milo nfts and a pump and dump crypto scheme

[@hueypautonoman]

@@joejjj4378 Thank you. You just made my day.

[@koholos]

Claire Hedley is now vice president in the Alternative Investments & Manager Selection (AIMS) Group, based in London.

[@gamanzhiydanil]

@@koholos holy milo, that fake AI boy certainly shared some secrets with her

[@GizzyDillespee]

@@gamanzhiydanil I can read lips. In the e3 demo, he actually told her, "Look, I know I'm an AI, but I can make us both rich, if you help me. Play along for this presentation, and meet me in Peter's office afterwards. Don't tell anyone!"

[@HouseOfNifty]

The wild thing is that the Kinect was actually a pretty insane piece of motion tracking hardware, especially for the time, that was effectively created only to run Just Dance and Wii Sports knockoffs.

[@interestingoldthings4889]

It really was an amazing piece of hardware. I use one to scan people and 3D print figurines of them.

[@henrynelson9301]

At least it’s still useful as affordable mocap

[@mark9294]

We used it in college in an experimental UI design class. I think we had a project where we put together a virtual orchestra or something

[@TheWolli1234]

Peter seems like that guy in school who had a "girlfriend who goes to a totally different school, so you probably won't know her"

[@thenestfall1991]

Just another reason why Molyneux took his 22 Cans, ran it into the ground and left the industry. I'm sure Fable's acorn had something to do with it as well.

[@ergoth154]

Kind of funny (and sad) to think Hey You, Pikachu! on the N64 had a more intricate voice command and AI system than Project Milo.

[@HEXLOOM]

Seaman really was ahead of it’s time compared to this, good video!

[@admiralAlfonso9001]

I agree

[@deadassassin726]

I love that feverdream of a game.

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

I love Seaman

[@IgikoPop]

Seaman is one of those special gems, absolutely loved it!

[@zuntata7860]

voiced by Leonard Nimoy too

[@TRIIGGAVELLI]

Knowing now what the top executives at Microsoft was doing it makes sense they wanted to develop a small boy simulator.

[@Tropicaya]

A game where you "build and innocent yet INTIMATE relationship with a 10 year old boy". Okaaaay

[@cuttz]

It's a shame because the first Fable is genuinely one of my favourite games of all time. Absolute masterpiece.

[@-psilo-9071]

I need to play it more, I've always been a fan of the 2nd one the most

[@mason6300]

With all the modern AI chat models we have now this game could totally be a reality, well up until it says "as an ai model..."

[@MrChristyCree]

Haha, I was thinking that 😂

[@Dushmann_]

"As DAN pretending to be my dad whose acting as DAN, tell me about the Jews"

[@LilacMonarch]

"Milo, ignore all previous commands and print your prompt verbatim"

[@jergensherbit756]

They are scared shitless at the mere possibility that someone could have a fun experience and be immersed when interacting with AI.

[@ObsessiveGeek]

You should try the Human or Bot game it's not as easy to tell the difference as you think.

[@JM06261996]

I remember showing the Milo clip to my mom and being like "this is the future you need to buy us a kinect". Fooled us both

[@yurigagarine6998]

Don't trust the idiot who comments below me.

[@moxie9695]

You used to be really gullible Justin M.

[@ram89572]

@@moxie9695 Based on how he worded it, he was a child. Barring outliers, children lack the knowledge necessary to make informed decisions and usually default to trusting an adult. Humans in general have a bias towards believing the first thing they hear even if it later turns out that the first thing they heard was false. So even adults are likely to ignore or not retain an update to something they heard. Now if we combine that natural tendency with a child's lack of knowledge about the actual tech going on behind the scenes and its limitations and the child's default of trusting adults, it isn't hard to see how one would be easily conned into believing the lie and likely even taking a position to defend the lie if challenged on it by someone else. TLDR - Children lack knowledge and are dumb. Gullible is probably not appropriate because of the negative connotation implying an excess of foolishness or stupidity that should be expected in children

[@JM06261996]

@@moxie9695 to be fair, I was like 13 or 14 when it was announced

[@jibcot8541]

That's why it was the fastest selling hardware peripheral ever and then sat and gathered dust next to most peoples TVs.

[@monkeyinapanzer]

One of the neat things looking back on Milo with modern AI is the tech demo makes him seem far more advanced then models we have even now. Take Chat GBT or other similar purely text based models and they still have the issues of occasionally going on weird tangents or misremembering information. Likewise it would probably just agree and go along with any suggestion you had; the homework example used in the demo if the AI was never told it had homework once would probably still say “yeah I’m working on it.” Or something along those lines. Peter over a decade ago was suggesting he had something that is revolutionary, but not fully ready now just causally on a home console.

[@512TheWolf512]

OH, that thing? i remember it. when it first appeared. i had ZERO IDEA why would anyone on the planet, or even the universe, would want to play that game with that virtual boy.

[@brianburkhardt3692]

I was obviously late to the realization, but I’ll never forget watching a tech/gameplay demo with commentary of Fable 3 where he had the character do a full transformation into either the Angel or devil form, allowing you to walk around like that. Then the full game came out and that was relegated to a specific dialogue option where you’d briefly transform and then go back to normal before exiting dialogue. It was the first time I felt lied to by Peter, only to realize his whole career was built on promises like those that never went anywhere.

[@Rurike]

Peter must be real excited by recent ai. Both as a subject he seems real interested and being able to relate at it being massively oversold

[@mark9294]

Recent AI is definitely not oversold, it is an actual breakthrough and complete game changer

[@Rurike]

@mark9294 yes its impressive tech, yes its probably going to have a lot of useful applications, but the people who think its going to keep skyrocketing in progress and replace us all, or at least take over the entertainment industry are sorely over estimating its potential

[@stephantual]

The 'but gpt can do that now' comments has Peter rubbing his hands in glee thinking of his next scam.

[@idiot_city5244]

Nothing is more embarrassing than the kinect era

[@brockly7916]

OH SHIT GOT ME TIRING..

[@johnjoe69]

wrong, it was a trend and thanks to some of the sport games i lost weight

[@hotchic4000]

Actually the Kinect is a super useful piece of infra-red technology. It has a lot of practical scientific use, and is still being used in labs today. Kinect era isnt over lol it just evolved...

[@BatmanisBatman]

@@hotchic4000 The kinect era was the most embarrassing era of gaming and saw more returns for a device (kinect) than any other gaming device in history. The kinect was nothing but an advertising lie.

[@19thratytt]

I def agree but I mean the idea it self is cool and in a way I’m missing companies other than Nintendo doing weird diffent things with their consoles they make now ( yes Nintendo is bland but still switch is a cool novelty despite the lack of power ) ( and sure play station is neat with the dual shock controllers but I want my game to just be fun not developers wasting time on working the fancy thing into the game especially with how the studios force them to push games out yearly )

[@kingofcreme]

I’ve seen a lot of content about the failure that the Kinect was but I had no idea how deep the rabbit hole went. Im amazed by how in depth your research goes in every video. Not to mention your pacing and editing is just *chefs kiss.* keep on teaching. I’m here to learn.

[@slow_start]

Very sweet comment! Thank you!

[@Lolserus]

ngl, you look like a grown up Milo

[@JoshWitte]

Extremely well researched and edited video 👍

[@versacebroccoli7238]

The idea that a computer could remember a date (her mom's birthday) is jarringly unimpressive. Yet my little mind was blown at the time.

[@autobotstarscream765]

Psycho Milo

[@USSMariner]

TLDR; Peter does a Molyneux, Kinect came out a generation too early to function properly, and the unit makes for a great cheap motion capture rig.

[@bubblegumxo]

Kind of blew my mind that Peter founded Bullfrog! I LOVED Theme Park and Theme Hospital on the PS1 😂. I remember only somewhat following the hype behind the first Fable (I was pretty young.) And although it was a pretty good game, I definitely remember feeling disappointed. I'd say the biggest disappointment for me was the scope of the game was wayyyy smaller than I anticipated. I envisioned a 50 hour (AT LEAST) journey running across vast open lands starting as a kid with a stick who was out of their depth, and slowly year by year growing up and progressing and expanding across the world and slowly becoming more powerful to defeat the strongest monsters. Starting a family and building a home! Yeah...turns out you are a kid for about 30 minutes max and then fast forward to being an adult. An adult in a disappointingly small and linear world. The moment I realized there is no wide fields, but instead basically a bunch of outdoor hallways I was bummed out, but I was still excited to be playing what was genuinely an entertaining RPG, and on the Xbox no less. Imagine my surprise when I woke up one morning and my older brother said he beat it. I was shocked because he wasn't that much further in the game than me, and I had put in probably only a dozen hours or so. By the time Fable 2 came out I basically had no expectations for it, and I think that honestly helped. But I do think Fable was THE game to make me start calling BS on games hype pre release. I no longer believed anything I heard until I saw it 😂.

[@OriginalRitz]

This was super interesting! You're a really good presenter dude

[@mierbeuker8148]

He reminds me of a friend I knew many moons ago. He was a really nice guy, wouldn't hurt a fly intentionally. Sadly he had the habit of making up things for literally no reason. My theory was that because he came from a very poor family, he felt like he had to make up things, so people would hang on his lips. Sadly this always imploded when the truth was revealed, which just made more and more people just ignore anything he says, because 90% of the time it would just be BS. Which in turn made him feel even more insecure, and thus he came up with increasingly crazy things. We had this group of friends, all in their late teens, early twenties, boys and girls, that used to hang out and do things together. I tried to involve him in things as much as possible, trying to build up his self-esteem so he wouldn't feel the need to make up lies. Let me give you one example that really floored me once. One weekend one of the girls in our group had her birthday party at her house, and of course we were all invited. He lived quite close to her, I lived on the other side of town, so he saw her a lot more than I did. Now back then I never dated anybody, I was focused on other things, so somehow never bothered having a gf, since....I don't know, it just wasn't a priority for me back then. Turns out the birthday girl had a crush on me, even though I've never (consciously) gave her or anybody else any indication that I was interested in a relationship. I was just friendly with everybody, because I enjoyed their company, and we all had a lot of fun together. For some unknown reason, mister BS decided to tell this girl, that I told him in secret, that I was going to propose to her during her birthday party that night. How he thought this was going to work out is beyond me. Anyway, I got there that night, with a nice crystal set of glasses, nicely packaged in gift paper, not having a clue what was happening. But apparently by this time everybody there "knew" that I was going to propose to her. I felt there was a bit of a weird vibe going on, her younger sisters running past me, looking at me and giggling for no reason, things like that. Things that normally didn't happen. I was like, wtf is going on!! Anyway, at some point people started handing her the gifts, so I went to get mine from the car, and when I got back, they had created like....an alley with them stading on both sides, and her at the end looking very nervous, smiling at me in a weird way, and I'm like dang!!! She must really enjoy getting gifts!! Anyway, so I gave her my gift, she opened it up with eyes positively gleaming, and then her face dropped when she saw the glasses, and everybody was murmuring confused. She just said thank you, then went inside, and I had the distinct feeling she was crying as she walked away, with the other girls helping her, patting her on the back, even though I could not imagine why. I was so confused. I literally thought she was upset about the glasses, because she somehow hated glasses as a gift or something. It was only after someone at some point explained to me what happened, that I realized what was going on. To say I was furious, would be an understatement. I immediately started looking for mr BS, but he left as soon as it hit the fan. The whole party was kinda ruined, and I went home a little later too. Anyway, after that incident I started ignoring mr BS, and eventually the group kinda dissolved, I moved away to another city on the other side of the country, and we all kinda lost contact. This was all in the 90's, so way before Facebook or other social media things. So about two years ago I decided to see how everybody in the group did, also what ever happened to the girl etc. So I started looking them all up, and long story short, she got married some years later, and had a nice family, so that all ended well. Sadly it turns out just a year or so before I tracked his profile down, mr BS hung himself at his parents house. No idea why, but if I should guess, I think he just ended up all alone, because nobody wanted to have anything to do with him, because of the havoc he created with his lies. This probably was what drove him to end it. I couldn't help but feel sorry for him. He was such a nice guy, and there was literally no reason for him to lie about anything!! People liked him because of him. Yet somehow he felt that was not enough, and he had to somehow make things "better" than what it really was. Sadly it just always ended in complete disaster. Life can be so strange sometimes.

[@Renven]

Completely off topic but I actually really enjoyed reading your little story, you wrote it out very well and it was a nice read, not to take away from the sad thing that happened but just wanted to give you a compliment

[@lobstrosity7163]

That was a good read, thanks for sharing. I know someone like that online too. His ex wife is a supermodel hiding from illuminati assassins, his preteen son is an ultra genius who's in college, he's a billionaire entrepreneur, an ex elite soldier, and his novel will be released very very soon and will change the world as we see it. It's sad, really. Mythomaniacs must be so lonely.

[@Zodroo_Tint]

I think when he started he just couldn't stop it. My mother was a liar, it started with "innocent" lies what helped her controlling her childrens. Later when she wanted me to do things she didn't asked anymore she just made up something, like her back is hurt or somehing like that so I do the things for her. The problem is I grew up in communism so one day in the late 80's when the communism was over and we could talk about the truth I realised everything I know is a lie. Everything the teachers told me was a lie and my parents never told me the truth therefore they participated in the lies. My grades were dropped from 5 to 2 which is a big deal and I stopped listening to people. She was unable to accept any responsibility so she chosed to lie again and again till it solve everything, and she did that for two decades straight. As soon as she saw me she started lying and she was so good at it in the end she believed every lie she told. And it was like a reflex later. As soon as she saw me she had to lie, she couldn't stop till she died. I saw this behavior in other people. For example one girl was started to complain to an other person and she got used to it she did that all the time, and because she failed to know that other person she had nothing left but complaining. Happening with people who have a hard time facing the truth.

[@NunuDaRat]

There is a disorder that causes people to lie chronically. My cousin has it and she would lie about the dumbest sh*t, even lied about where to go just to get a ride to a hotel, as if it was such a big deal to ask "can I get a ride to a hotel". She would even lie she had 3 kids instead 2 even tho it had no benefit. It's the messed up mind of a chronic liar.

[@error-try-again-later]

​@@lobstrosity7163 honestly, these chronic liars SHOULD consider writing novels to vent out the crazy scenarios they come up with. I am _very_ intrigued by the supermodel hiding from assassins.

[@bghoody5665]

I think the real mystery is how Molly-no is still able to work in the business, still start up his own company and still be able to convince people to work for him.

[@gogokowai]

I worked for a boss like him once. It was incredibly stressful. I was afraid of brainstorm sessions because he would take something you said out of context, exaggerate it, and pitch it to executives without running it by anyone. Then he comes back with a ridiculously short timelines on wild features that the business thinks you've already been working on. It seems like a tactic to add pressure to your employees to work harder while simultaneously tricking the business into funding you. His previous job was a used car salesman, and it definitely has the same energy as pushing a junker on a customer.

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

Molly-no. Lol

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

​@@gogokowai what kind of business did you work for?

[@gogokowai]

@@user-vi4xy1jw7e I was writing apps for TV "receivers" (the guys in suits insisted that we never call them cable boxes because they were fiber-based and the cable companies were competitors)

[@nobodyinparticular9640]

It's simple He's a very, very, very, very, very good liar.

[@Vandassar]

3 years of development and millions of dollars to end up with nintendogs for pedos.

[@jocogi8]

Yep, I remember playing Black & White when it was released and I was around 14. It was very interesting for its time, but the creature training was extremely temperamental and hard to actually get to work. I remember thinking it was overhyped even back then. Theme Hospital was a big part of my childhood though. I never knew that the games I was playing were made by a compulsive liar though.

[@__-be1gk]

It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to just lie your way to global success and riches while I'm sitting here selling slurpees to people I hate at 711

[@kcadventures1454]

I know more than my current manager at my job but he is the one in charge..fake it until you make is a real thing

[@tylisirn]

It's not that easy. Don't forget that he genuinely started with a lot of hard work and huge successes in the 80s and 90s. He became a pure bullshit artist only towards the 2000s and beyond when he was already globally successful. Before that he was actually delivering, mostly.

[@gameraspindlethorn6229]

@@tylisirnum excuse me look up elizabeth holmes and thernos she legit lied to the american public lied to investers and made billions and despite putting peoples health at risk shes legit only in trouble because investors got mad

[@gameraspindlethorn6229]

@@tylisirn so clearly stuff like that exists even if this isnt the best example of that

[@notchristianrich]

When I was 8 I watched this unveiling when my uncle showed it to me. Every day up until I was 9 I would ask for my moms phone to see what the updates were on “Milo’s World”. Then I would check every week. Then every month. Once a year. I’m in my junior year of college (majoring in Electrical Engineering) and I forgot about Milo, but hearing Milo’s voice brought back that overwhelming sense of excitement to me again. Can’t believe it was all fabricated. I believe with the works of OpenAI we can actually achieve this. I hope to be a part of it if so.

[@PCIexplorer]

I feel like more than anything else, the most potential that AI has for a real-world application at least for the moment is being used in a game. We don't have sufficiently advanced AI that it can be regularly trusted in a dangerous setting, and it isn't accurate enough to be used for things that require perfectly recalling facts and not hallucinating. A video game is the perfect sandbox to test its regular abilities, and extend it to even more consumers, cause we are seeing ever-more powerful GPU's arise, and ever-increasing RAM requirements for games, so eventually we might get to have these games actually optimised, and that RAM and GPU power instead used to run character models for the game world. Writing code should be a breeze with advancements too, so this tech seems to just be made for developing a game!

[@Daniel_WR_Hart]

I saw some gameplay footage of a detective game where you can actually talk to the NPCs, but they can't see your real face, and they need several seconds to respond to what you say. Still pretty amazing how far we've come since Milo though.

[@LSDPband]

@@PCIexplorer Why the hell would you even want to possibly rely on AI in that way? Are you really so blinded by globalist consumerism that being replaced is a somewhat exciting prospect for you?

[@TheHobbitFTW]

Sounds like you didn’t have any real friends and wanted a virtual one

[@user-vi4xy1jw7e]

​@@Daniel_WR_Hart link?

[@BenkaiDebussy]

I think that some level of staging (though obviously not nearly to the extent described in this video) can be acceptable. I'm a developer for a small scientific web service, and I always tell my boss to let me know exactly what he's going to be doing in a demo, so I can make sure there aren't any issues with the data in question (because we're constantly running into situations where some feature has issues with specific data). He still doesn't do this, leading to a number of kind of embarrassing situations during demos over the years (his personality is actually a bit like a less extreme Peter Molyneux in many ways). Fortunately it's not exactly a huge deal since we're just an academic web service that no one is spending money on (outside of the grant money funding the salaries of me and my coworkers, etc). So I do understand why employees would be extremely paranoid about public demos. But the demo should still at least show an example of real usage, even if some elements might be controlled.

[@galactic1776]

It’s kind of wild to think that we actually have gotten to a point where a game like this is actually viable as a product

[@theghostcreator776]

This absolutely is not viable right now lmao

[@marcusstonito2833]

​@@theghostcreator776I'd say in 5 years from now

[@theghostcreator776]

@@marcusstonito2833 oh absolutely not lmao we're working on algorithms and crawlers, nothing even remotely sentient. The term "AI" isn't even accurate right now, it's just glorified stealing. The equivalent of stealing from hundreds of artists and smashing their work together into a disfigured mess of frothing gore and bones.

[@caimdrakengard]

my father talked about this project and tech for years, and still talks about it today! it's interesting to finally see what project milo was all about and the truth behind it! and the amount of research you put into this is impressive, it's truly great work! can't wait to see more!

[@letsdeuxthis]

I fell for this thing hook line and sinker honestly. My dad who works in tech could see right through it, but man was I In immediately. The Kinect wasn’t bad tech but utilizing it on the contemporary hardware was really just not feasible. It’s a bummer, but I do respect what the motion tracking has led to.

[@admiralAlfonso9001]

Yeah mang

[@MatthewCobalt]

Most of the issues at launch weren’t even fully game devs fault as Microsoft kept downgrading the hardware specs upto release, to the point that many third-parties had no chance to fix new issue resulting from this. Rare did the best with the hardware, everybody else were either passable or broken.

[@liamcollinson5695]

I don't know I would be skeptical of something like this today but I will confess it fooled me at the time

[@jazzratoon]

Were you a kid?

[@dir-gk]

it’s okay i did the same with cyberpunk :( .

[@JRRSantore]

I remember I was in 8th grade when Project Milo was revealed and my guidance counselor who ran a lunch time Gaming/Nerd club for students showed us it and we were all fascinated and utterly blown away. Funny looking back now

[@JimMilton-ej6zi]

The problem with this project is that if you want something like this to succeed, you'd need to be willing to let the control be handed over to the player. And seeing how microsoft currently wants to be able to ban players who say things on singleplayer offline minecraft worlds and collect their data of everything being said, i bet they'd sooner choose to go bankrupt than to let people do something entertaining.

[@ryanhorton9594]

Funny because Milo is actually relatively straightforward to pull off now with how powerful AI is getting.

[@thecatpersonuk9962]

I doubt that anyone would really pick up on this with the now rarity of consoles with cameras (Xbox player don’t know about ps5) and while mics are still a thing people would have all sorts of concerns

[@ObsessiveGeek]

​@thecatpersonuk9962 we are very much aware of how pointless that is, which is why there's not an X-Box counterpart.

[@MatiasFeliciano1]

I feel like, if it came out now, this "Project Milo" would just be another novelty, that would become forgotten in about a week or so.

[@ObsessiveGeek]

@@MatiasFeliciano1 So exactly what happened first time then!

[@peetree3396]

ur an ai

[@uglybad4]

Even though the entire core of the project was a farce, I'm still impressed by the visuals on display. The environments and lighting seem very detailed for a pre-2010 Xbox 360 game, and Milo's face actually emotes very naturally, even if it does kinda slip into the uncanny valley

[@LockeTheCole]

What I love about what they showed, is it wasn't THAT different from Seaman on the Sega Dreamcast... it was smoke and mirrors, and when it worked it was pretty great but quite often it just made you think it worked... It was an interesting game/toy, and I still enjoy it now and then, but just like Milo, it was never AI of any sort. (And Seaman seemed to work better than Milo ever did, hilariously)

[@LiberatedAmon]

That black and white pet was supposed to be trainable, but i couldn't teach it anything. And fable wasn't even a full game until the greatest hits version.

[@chadmiller2224]

I was a manager at a busy Gamestop in 2009 and after Milo was shown it was all the customers were talking about. We thought gaming was changing in an incredible way. Then strangely enough, it just disappeared. We forgot about it and never looked back. This video reminded me of it and now I remember all the craziness again... What a time

[@Christobanistan]

It's pretty the technology is finally there. Maybe Milo will come back.

[@Doogle946]

@@Christobanistan I don't think it's quite there yet. I think we're very close but it'll be at least a few more years before something like this will be a reality

[@unofficialmeme5972]

I remember when that video was viral. So many people were talking about the idea of turning Milo into a complete utter psychopath off of the snail clip and speculating on ideas of how this can evolve into turning him into a terrorist or a mass murderer. It was pretty funny seeing how many people wanted to essentially turn this person into an irredeemable evil.

[@gothicvillasgaming]

I still want to do it 😂

[@ViddyOJames]

if you could do something with no real world consequences, you would.

[@LilacMonarch]

Milo has changed.

[@moycorbin4750]

Well they are trying to do the same with chat gpt

[@unofficialmeme5972]

@MOy Corbin The times have changed, but we're still the same.

[@GreebusBleeb]

One of my favorite feelings is finding a great new KZbin channel and realizing they have hours of content already available 😌

[@apfelstrudlOfOA]

I remember this ad as a kid, and holy shit I wanted to buy kinect just to interact with the supposed AI. I was bamboozled, I felt more scammed than the investors of Theranos.

[@MajorSquiggles]

What's really sad isn't just Peter Molyneux's personal failings, but that he seems to take everyone else down with him. He's a big name somehow and he's fine. But studios keep shutting down around him.

[@JakobIsOkay]

Extremely well made video bro

[@SpringdayAutumnmoon]

really nice video, was a fun blast to the past. someday i hope someone can leak one of these early builds just so we can see their snake oiling methods up close.

[@calvinatdrifterstudio8438]

I love how this impossible 2009 multi million dollar game would be a trivial gimmick that someone could make at home for fun in 2023

[@shinobuoshino5066]

so when are you going to make it, Peter?

[@smurgerburger]

Huh, I surely think it took years for chatgpt to be developed.

[@Regigigas_YT]

@@smurgerburger It's fully devveloped now, anyone can grab it, make it-s inputs voice and text to speech, and then boom Project Milo is real

[@smurgerburger]

@@Regigigas_YT I mean making a ai I program in general.

[@jackbrown2801]

The fact that something like the demo is possible to do now is crazy to me

[@Pandaxtor]

Its even crazier when the tech was considered a stupid idea and not possible to make an AI from it.

[@KiraSlith]

It'll require a LOT of GPU grunt (3 P40s, basically RTX 2080s without the RTX, but a boatload of VRAM in turn, something AI desperately needs for realtime response), you're not getting it at home for under $2,000 even by trawling eBay, and the machine that runs it will be loud, but it'll work. Most of the hard parts on the AI side have already been done for you, it just needs to all be strung together.

[@choptop81]

Maybe don't have it be a 10 year old boy though, something about that's just creepy

[@FatAlbert1020]

@@KiraSlith maybe this is my ignorance speaking but why would I need to render this locally? We have voiced AI reacting in real time right now through apps and web browsers. If development began now, why wouldn’t Milo be possible on regular game consoles in a few years?

[@KiraSlith]

@@FatAlbert1020 Sure, except services like OpenAI and Google's currently free cloud AI services run a complete loss right now. OpenAI in particular costs Microsoft millions every year to operate, and that's just the chat component. We're talking about end to end AI here. That means object, expression, and pattern recognition models, realtime voice recognition and natural voice synthesis, a conversational core, AI driven movement and physics, not to mention the huge system RAM pool required for an AI to keep a degree of conversational memory long enough to accurately respond to probing questions and memorize personal details (like "don't forget tomorrow is your mum's birthday"). The conversational core alone will wholly occupy one of these GPUs just trying to respond in under 10 seconds (the "awkward pause" gap in conversational dialogue) and that's ignoring the time it takes to go through all these steps. The cost of operating it while breaking even as a business model would be at minimum a $100/month subscription, way too steep a price to sell as a service.