Detroit: Become Human (by Quantic Dream)

The Kara Tech Demo (released way back in 2012), demonstrating for the first time an engine that could capture the whole acting performance at the same time, whereas previous ones had to do facial, vocal and bodily acting separately. It's a lovely little subversive piece of work in itself, and now in 2015 it's turned into...

Detroit: Become Human, which seems to feature a much more advanced version of the same engine and apparently picks up the story right after where Kara left it off.

edited 27th Oct '15 8:49:46 PM by LE0Night

Getting super heavy Uncanny Valley vibes from here. I don't see the big deal over it. Its a tech demo.

edited 7th Mar '12 7:24:29 PM by Thorn14

Whoever the hell designed those androids is gonna get a real nasty wake-up call soon. Just within minutes of being "activated", she was already capable of fear, reasoning, and a whole lot of other emotions. Basically, she's a human with a compulsion to serve and follow orders... as long as she finds it agreeable.

edited 7th Mar '12 7:25:58 PM by SgtRicko

My heart was damned near breaking as they disassembled her, and I very rarely have strong emotional reactions to movies or games. I was going to say that was probably entirely due to the actress, but then I realised that the graphics and animation have to be convincing as well for me to react like that. So yeah, I'm sold.

edited 21st Mar '12 3:08:31 PM by LE0Night

Huh, neat. Kinda uncanny valley-ish, but cool nonetheless.

As for the plot, was kinda meh on it, only because I kind of dislike androids. I'm kinda like a white guy version of Will Smith's character in I, Robot.

That was very good.

Too bad I can't say the same of Heavy Rain.

Fight. Struggle. Endure. Suffer. LIVE.

Certainly I'm look forward to seeing whatever next game they produce with this tech.

Because then I'll have a PS 3, purchased with the wonders of very disposable military income.

edited 21st Mar '12 4:37:54 PM by MarkVonLewis

Just watched this video. I am still raw. The voice actress's performance was perfect and I still feel like someone kicked me in the guts.

Uncanny Valley? Maybe. But as time goes on that is the kind of accusation that will have to be made by people who cannot cope with the changes in graphics technology that will get so good, so lifelike that you would have to be told the person you are watching is not human.

I thought the guy overseeing the testing was completely inappropriate for the job. The robot feels the compulsion to keep existing? It begs? My reaction wouldn't be "something must be wrong with it, let's disassemble it". My reaction would be along the lines of

"WE DID IT! WE ACTUALLY FUCKING DID IT! IT'S ALIVE! OH MY GOD IT'S ALIIIIIVE! CALL THE PRESS! CALL THE PREZ! CALL EVERYONE! WE FINALLY DID IT! WE BUILT A SENTIENT, SAPIENT BEING! WOOOHOO!"

Heck, there would probably be an entire room full of a hackers and scientists and engineers throwing their papers in the air and crying and hugging and being absolutely ecstatic.

Honestly, during all the "disassembly" sequence, I was expecting the overseer to stop any second and say: "congratulations, baby, you're alive", or even something as deadpan as "self-preservation circuits, check". I kept thinking it was all part of the plan, because it seemed obvious they wouldn't kill her, and it seemed suicidally stupid from a professional standpoint to release a Ridiculously Human Robot into the world like that. So I didn't think he'd do either.

Eh, still, it was really good, from an artistic standpoint.

And yeah, they aren't out of the Uncanny Valley yet.

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

What was most impressive about the technology is that all of that was done on the fly in the PS 3's guts. Nothing pre-rendered about it.

One wonders just how good Quantic Dream's new kit is like?

I Got a feeling they were copying one of the scenes from Bicentennial Man. The head of a company that makes robotic servants offers to take in the defective robot (Robin Williams character), scrap it, and offer a brand new model to the man who reported a similar issue. He says the reason why is just to be in good faith to his customers, but the more likely truth is that the Press created by a robot asking questions or acting strange would damage their company reputation and likely start an investigation.

edited 18th Feb '13 10:02:25 PM by SgtRicko

You also have to wonder how many of the robots in that line up that Kara ends up in were also people like her? The thing about the singularity that I think most folks miss is that it will not just be one isolated event, if it fits with the pattern of parallel evolution that is found throughout biological history.

I can forgive the slight Uncanny Valley-ness seeing as she's an android or something. Aside from that, it still looked amazing and the actress's performance was great. Better than all of Heavy Rain by far.

Yer. What will Quantic Dream's next stuff look like? (I am not sure if they still exist though, what with every game company seeming to be dying on its backside.)

Good point. One possibility is that she's asking questions due to some disgruntled programmer adding in some extra coding to make her more intelligent than usual, perhaps to stir up controversy, make a political statement, show how smart the robots can actually be, etc.

Or as you brought up, the more disturbing one is that she's beginning of a "defective" line, and very real possbility that there are several other Karas out there who have the same issue but were not detected by the QA department (or were deliberately released, as in her case).

I think the conversation patterns that she displayed were well beyond what Turing would have called true artificial intelligence - that was real fear. It seemed to me that simple dickery on the part of the programmers wouldn't get to that kind of level.

They've got two games in the pipeline. One featuring what's likely the Kara character (as played by Ellen Page, you've probably seen the trailers) and one for PS 4, perhaps.

edited 18th Feb '13 10:17:01 PM by Nicknacks

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Well, they've still got Beyond coming out sometime this year. That's still PS 3 (from what we've been told anyway...) and it looks incredible.◊

edited 18th Feb '13 10:19:05 PM by Ryuhza

this place needs me here

That's computer generated? That's COMPUTER GENERATED? Wow.

x3 Beyond involves Kara?

Umbran Climax◊

They look similar. And it wouldn't be the first time that they've used data from a tech demo in the game. Saves resources.

I mean, I'm assuming here. But it's not unlikely.

edited 18th Feb '13 10:27:56 PM by Nicknacks

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I find it doubtful. Kara has the feeling of being a one-shot short, and there's not much world-building or potential hooks otherwise.

Also, Beyond doesn't seem sci-fi.

It's more like Cage's specialty. Contemporary thriller with a supernatural twist(Heavy Rain sort of included).

edited 18th Feb '13 10:57:35 PM by JotunofBoredom

Umbran Climax◊

So apparently, the actress was in Twilight: Breaking Dawn.

She's moving up in the world.

edited 20th Feb '13 7:34:59 AM by PhysicalStamina