Second Life to Introduce Fake Friends

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If you’ve spent any time in Second Life over the course of the last decade or so, you’ve probably definitely noticed that more and more people are agoraphobic. Many stay in their homes idling by themselves, or atop “platforms” 3000 meters up in the air, only socializing with one or two people they know personally. The virtual world has never been more disconnected as a social platform, for reasons … uh, that I’m not quite sure of. But, no need to fear! Linden Labs is alpha testing an AI character creator so that your friends can be as fake as your imagination!

Pictured in the screenshot is a dialogue that says, “Your own personal bot intended to accompany you as you explore the world, bond with you, and interact mostly or only with you.” Because, it’s not like Second Life was, and has always been, a 3D virtual chat application. A place where you’re supposed to meet people, form friendships, and build together. No, absolutely not. This is a single-player virtual world, where the bonds you form are as contrived, meaningless, and embarrassing as asking Google’s Gemini if it loves you.

Introduced by Darcy Linden via an official blog post:

Developed in collaboration with Convai, the Character Designer empowers you to craft, customize, and animate virtual characters within Second Life. This tool is intended for developers, community builders, roleplay enthusiasts, and anyone looking to enhance their inworld experiences through dynamic characters.

Roleplay enthusiasts! Now you don’t have to stand around in a group of five people in a city crafted by the hands of creators, writing ten paragraph long scenes for each other to immerse yourselves within while you create stories. Now, you’ll be able to replace all of those people and unique moments with plagiarism bots! OH BOY.

Just like with any other company that has suddenly decided to force AI into their products, we can only assume that this is happening because the CEO behind Linden Labs has demanded it. And, also, in every circumstance that this has happened within in the past year, I’ll ask the same question: Can we fire whoever’s responsible for this? Before it becomes the nail in the coffin that completely ruins what has been a place of discovery and friendship for decades?

Linden Labs: You want to bolster the community, reinvigorate the userbase? Take notes from VR Chat. Make creation and building easier. Realize that not everything should require a user whip out their wallet, and give new users something actually cool. Lower the cost of hosting your own server from 250 USD per month, to something more within the realm of sanity, at, say, 14.99 a month.

Or, go the desperate CEO route, and inject generative slop into Second Life. Watch it finally die, so that every person on Reddit who asks, “Isn’t Second Life dead?” can finally be correct.