NetEase game Justice holds world’s first AI conference, taking place in the hit MMORPG
- NetEase repurposed a scene from its hit MMORPG Justice so AI scientists could meet and share their research
- The International Conference on Distributed Artificial Intelligence previously took place in Beijing, but Covid-19 spoiled the event this year
Outside an entrance marked by towering wooden doors, three armoured warriors in conical hats kept guard. Inside, visitors in ancient garb walked on plush Chinese carpets to the front hall, passing rows of stately armchairs. On the stage, flanked by calligraphy scrolls and ornamental dragons, an invited scholar was about to start his lecture.
His topic? An introduction to artificial intelligence (AI) and deep learning.
The occasion was the International Conference on Distributed Artificial Intelligence, an annual gathering of researchers that debuted in Beijing last year. But this year, like millions of other events worldwide, the October event was forced to move online.
The less adventurous of the 300 or so participants could join on Zoom or watch a live video feed on Bilibili, a streaming platform popular among China’s professed geeks. Or they could choose what organisers dubbed the “immersive” experience: attend the event as a virtual character in a blockbuster game.
In most video meetings, you’re either looking at a PowerPoint or a talking head … This is more like an offline conference, but one that saves you time
To host the academic conference, NetEase Games recreated a scene in Justice featuring a small palace complex encircled by bamboo trees. Participants could listen to talks inside the complex while some researchers had their posters displayed on billboards outside. Zoom videos were projected onto a screen.
Questions were asked in chat boxes or by pressing a button to speak. Avatars could be personalised with dozens of costume and accessory options.
This was the world’s first AI conference ever held in a video game, according to NetEase.
The concept of setting up virtual worlds where people roam imaginary landscapes and chat with new friends on computers is nothing new. But if the much-hyped Second Life was considered premature in the mid-2000s, the coronavirus pandemic of 2020 has given people a whole new reason to re-examine the idea.
Amid lockdowns and quarantines, games have suddenly become a creative medium for friends and families to stay connected. As social distancing disrupted weddings, some couples exchanged vows in Animal Crossing. And with campuses emptied, graduates gathered in Minecraft to receive pixelated diplomas in virtual ceremonies.
These activities were more than just online chats. They represent attempts to recreate elements of real-life interaction: the rituals of events and the emotional values attached to them.
They might be less immersive than virtual or augmented reality, but that does not appear to make them less impactful. One bride told CNN in March that her virtual beach wedding in Animal Crossing was “very sweet”.
Every participant I spoke with at the AI conference told me they had a good time attending a real event in virtual terrain. “Amazing” was how one attendee described the format. Others marvelled at the details of the digital venue. A few said it was less boring than a typical online academic conference.
“I love looking at the posters,” said Minghao Zhao, a participant whose research focuses on user profiling with big data. “In most video meetings, you’re either looking at a PowerPoint or a talking head … This is more like an offline conference, but one that saves you time.”
Organisers from NetEase’s Fuxi AI Lab said they saw the event as an opportunity to push the boundaries of virtual events.
“As an increasing number of conferences are held online or virtually because of the Covid-19 pandemic, this conference presents a way of how those online meetings could be held in a more interesting and interactive manner,” a company representative said.
Participants could strike up a conversation by tapping on another person’s avatar or searching for a name. And if words were not enough, they could also order their avatars to perform different movements to better express how they felt: clap for happiness, make a hand heart to show appreciation, or slap someone in the face if an academic paper was especially horrible.
In reality, though, many of the avatars I saw were either frozen in place or aimlessly running around. At one point, I had my avatar sit down on the floor and wail. No one ever tried to comfort me. Messages I sent to random participants sometimes went unanswered, indicating that they were either unwilling to talk to me or unaware of the feature.
Still, NetEase Games has high hopes for the future of “immersive meeting solutions”. It suggested potential applications like history lessons taught in ancient worlds and weddings on the moon.
Virtual worlds like Justice are far from perfect. Unlike in real life, where you can just walk up to someone and introduce yourself, conversations mediated through chat boxes lack a certain degree of directness and spontaneity. But if some people were not quite ready to chat, they appeared fully involved with other aspects of the pixelated environment.
As the four-day conference prepared to wrap up, participants followed each other outside for a final celebration. Crowds of attendees gathered in the courtyard and shiny fireworks rained down from the sky. While not the same as watching real fireworks radiate above you, it was a still a public spectacle that has become a rare occurrence in the real world this year.
