She walked in calmly. I didn't know her, though somehow I had a feeling I should. She's not extremely beautiful. Nobody seemed to notice her, which did surprise me. She looked at me, very shortly, then walked towards the bar. Who's she? Hmm. She got a Jolt (they told me they sold out, how can she get one?) and went to the computers in the back of the HALL tent. You know, sometimes if some person enters a room the energy changes. Dunno why and how, but that happened now. The peculiar thing now was, that nobody seemed to notice the girl yet everybody acted as if that energy change happened. I don't know why, nor do I know why I know that. Then I recognized her. Saw her yesterday, when there weren't so many people at HIP yet. The color of her hair's different now, so are her clothes. Wasn't she taller yesterday? Hmmm... When she got seated at a computer (her own?) I stopped noticing her, I picked up writing this diary. The title of a book popped into my mind. "Artificial Life". Alife is a hot topic among AI researchers, and has been for some time. Why isn't there a workshop on Alife at HIP? There's so many nerds here knowing all about computers (and nothing about real life? Just kidding....). HIPcar is a form of Alife, I suppose. Why aren't there artificial visitors to HIP? I can imagine a computer program that registers at the HIP registration page and pays by forged credit card and makes up a name for the HIP registration list. Then, when HIP starts, it could join the #hip97 channel on irc (which is fun, btw). Oops. There's a bug in my screen. I mean, a real bug. I little insect managed to get between the layers of the lcd screen. It has a preference for the darker area's of the sreen. This Alife HIP participant would gradually become a real participant. Of course, nobody would really see him, I mean IRL, but if you meet someone on irc, they write some pieces on the HIP site, comment on lectures by email, volunteer for bartending at the HALL by email (a pity they don't show up...). They'd get involved in all kinds of initiatives. They'd even participate in the preparation of a workshop. The Alife person could be fairly wellknown on the net, before HIP. I mean, you read this, assuming a human being wrote all this. Are you sure? Are you sure I'm not a robot or Alife person? "An Alife person is dumb" you say. I can be pretty dumb too. I let my computer hack in a very simple way. And AI researchers can do pretty neat things. Ever seen what Patty Maes at MIT Medialab can do? She's from Luc Steels' AI group in Brussels, she moved to MIT after finishing her PhD and now combines AI knowledge with media technology. I know she and her group can make a program that can fool you for some time. Ever seen their little dog, projected on a big screen, and responging to your gestures like a real dog? Besides, it doesn't take that much to fool someone. I made a cyborg palace site (at DDS) and put a little robot in it. It didn't do much more than replying to particular words and sentences with sentences and actions. Some people got fooled for over 10 minutes *g* Next page