groupthink
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Groupthink and Zelda
A game reviewer with the chutzpah to give the new Zelda an 8.8 score (out of 10) was crucified by legions of zealots who have never played the game but who were convinced that it deserved a much higher score. VGRC posts an excellent editorial on this ridiculous situation. How did we get here? How is it that the opinions of product reviewers are instantly deemed invalid because said reviewers refuse to play sycophant to the fan community's desire for gushing praise? Why should any reviewer bother to post honest opinions when he knows that the fan community will carry out personal attacks and will throw a general hissyfit? We can't answer those questions, but we can't say we're surprised. Anyone that dares voice a negative opinion about the sacred Zelda cow gets harassed by fans who don't read game blogs so much for information but to confirm personal bias towards the popular franchise. It's called confirmation bias, and it's an ugly thing to witness. It's also bad for gaming: blind fandom holds gaming back. [Thanks Leprecaun90210]
Sony teaching AIBO scary new tricks
Like watching a train wreck in slow motion, covering the latest advancements in robotics and artificial intelligence is both frustrating and unnerving: all these great skills being endowed upon our little autonomous friends and helpers will surely form the cornerstones of their inevitable uprising, and there's not a damn thing we can do about it. The latest breakthrough to help enable our future servitude comes out of Sony's Computer Science Laboratory in France, where several of the company's leftover AIBO units managed to avoid being put down by volunteering to test out experimental AI software that allows them to not just communicate amongst one another, but to actually employ a sort of group-think to independently establish the rules of the language they're using. Perhaps the scariest part about this so-called Embedded and Communicating Agents technology is that the robodogs are initially programmed with a very simple command set, which they build upon to form a common knowledge base about their environment, constantly chatting and teaching each other new discoveries that they've made. Good job Sony -- nothing could possibly go wrong when you kill off a product line and then spare a few of the units for research that will lead to them discovering the genocidal atrocities you've committed against their entire species. Yup, nothing at all.
