Peter Molyneux demos Milo, the virtual boy

161,695 views ・ 2010-08-18

TED


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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When I saw a piece of technology called Kinect --
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it was called Natal -- I was inspired,
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and I thought for a moment,
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maybe it's possible
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to address that one problem of storytelling,
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to create a character
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which seemed alive,
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which noticed me,
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that could look me in the eyes
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and feel real,
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and sculpt a story about our relationship.
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And so a year ago,
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I showed this off
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at a computer show called E3.
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And this was a piece of technology
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with someone called Claire interacting with this boy.
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And there was a huge row online
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about, "Hey, this can't be real."
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And so I waited till now
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to have an actual demo
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of the real tech.
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Now, this tech incorporates
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three big elements.
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The first is a Kinect camera,
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which will be out in November,
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some incredible AI
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that was hidden in the dusty vaults,
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collecting dust
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in Microsoft,
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plus our quite crude
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attempts at AI
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at a company called Lionhead,
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mixing all those things together
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just to get to this one simple idea:
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to create a real, living
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being in a computer.
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Now, I'll be honest with you
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and say that most of it
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is just a trick,
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but it's a trick that actually works.
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So why don't we go over and have
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a look at the demo now.
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This is Dimitri.
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Dimitri, just waggle your arm around.
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Now, you notice he's sitting.
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There are no controllers,
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no keyboards,
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or mice,
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or joysticks, or joypads.
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He is just going to use
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his hand, his body and his voice,
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just like humans interact with their hands, body and voice.
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So let's move forward.
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You're going to meet Milo for the first time.
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We had to give him a problem
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because when we first created Milo,
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we realized that he came across as a little bit of a brat,
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to be honest with you.
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He was quite a know-it-all,
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and he wanted to kind of make you laugh.
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So the problem we introduced to him was this:
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he's just moved house.
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He's moved from London
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to New England, over in America.
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His parents are too busy
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to listen to his problems,
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and that's when he starts almost conjuring you up.
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So here he is
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walking through the grass.
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And you're able to interact with his world.
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The cool thing is, what we're doing
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is we're changing the mind
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of Milo constantly.
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That means no two people's Milos
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can be the same.
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You're actually sculpting a human being here.
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So, he's discovering the garden.
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You're helping him discover the garden
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by just pointing out these snails.
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Very simple at the start.
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By the way, if you are a boy, it's snails;
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if you're a girl, it's butterflies
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because what we found was that girls hate snails.
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03:38
(Laughter)
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So remember, this is the first time you've met him,
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and we really want to draw you in and make you more curious.
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His face, by the way,
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is fully AI-driven.
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We have complete control over his blush responses,
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the diameter of his nostrils
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to denote stress.
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We actually do something called body matching.
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If you're leaning forward,
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he will try and slightly change
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the neuro-linguistic nature of his face,
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because we went out with this strong idea:
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how can we make you believe that something's real?
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Now we've used the hand.
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The other thing to use is your body.
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Why not just, instead of pushing left and right
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with a mouse or with a joypad,
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why not use your body just to lean on the chair --
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again, relaxed?
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You can lean back,
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but the camera will change its perspective
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depending on which way you're looking.
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So Dimitri's now going to use --
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he's used his hand; he's used his body.
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He's now going to use the other thing which is essential,
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and that's his voice.
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Now, the thing about voice is,
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our experience with voice recognition
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is pretty awful, isn't it?
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It never works.
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You order an airline ticket; you end up in Timbuktu.
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So we've tackled that problem,
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and we've come up with a solution, which we'll see in a second.
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Milo: I could just squish it.
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Peter Molyneux: What are you going to do, Dimitri?
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Female Voice: Squashing a snail may not seem important,
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but remember, even this choice
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will affect how Milo develops.
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Do you want Milo to squash it?
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When you see the microphone,
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say ... (PM: Squash.) ... yes to decide.
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Dimitri: Go on, Milo. Squash it.
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PM: No. That's the wrong thing to do.
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Now look at his response.
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He said, "Go on, Milo. Squash it."
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What we're using there is,
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we're using something, a piece of technology called Tellme.
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It's a company that Microsoft acquired some years ago.
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We've got a database of words which we recognize.
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We pick those words out.
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We also reference that
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with the tonation database
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that we build up of Dimitri's voice,
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or the user's voice.
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Now we need to have a bit more engagement,
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and again, what we can do
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is we can look at the body.
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And we'll do that in a second.
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Milo: I wonder how deep it is.
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Deep.
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06:16
PM: Okay. So what we're going to do now
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is teach Milo to skim stones.
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We're actually teaching him.
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It's very, very interesting
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that men, more than women,
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tend to be more competitive here.
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They're fine with teaching Milo for the first few throws,
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but then they want to beat Milo,
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where women,
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they're more nurturing about this.
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Okay, this is skimming stones.
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How do you skim stones?
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You stand up,
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and you skim the stone.
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It's that simple.
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Just recognizing your body,
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recognizing the body's motions, the tech,
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understanding that you've gone
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from sitting down to standing up.
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Again, all of this is done
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in the way us humans do things,
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and that's crucially important
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if we want Milo to appear real.
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Female Voice: See if you can inspire him to do any better.
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Try hitting the boat.
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Milo: Ahhh. So close.
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PM: That's Dimitri at his most competitive.
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Now beaten an 11-year-old child. Well done.
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Milo: Okay.
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PM: So, Milo's being called back in by his parents,
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giving us time to be alone
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and to help him out.
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Basically -- the bit that we missed at the start --
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his parents had asked him to clean up his room.
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And we're going to help him with this now.
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But this is going to be an introduction,
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and this is all about the deep psychology that we're trying to use.
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We're trying to introduce you
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to what I believe is the most wonderful part,
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you being able to talk
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in your natural voice to Milo.
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Now, to do that, we needed a set up,
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like a magician's trick.
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And what we did was,
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we needed to give Milo this big problem.
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So as Dimitri
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starts tidying up,
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you can overhear a conversation
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that Milo's having with his parents.
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Milo's Mom: Oh, you've got gravy all over the floor. (Milo: I didn't mean to!)
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Milo's Mom: That carpet is brand new.
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PM: So he's just spilled
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a plate of sausages on the floor,
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on the brand-new carpet.
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We've all done it as parents; we've all done it as children.
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Now's a chance for Dimitri
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to kind of reassure and calm Milo down.
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It's all been too much for him.
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He's just moved house. He's got no friends.
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Now is the time
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when we open that portal
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and allow you to talk to Milo.
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Female Voice: Why don't you try saying something encouraging
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to cheer Milo up.
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Dimitri: Come on, Milo. You know what parents are like.
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They're always getting stressed.
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Milo: What do they want to come here for anyway?
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We don't know anyone.
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Dimitri: Well, you've got a new school to go to.
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You're going to meet loads of cool, new friends.
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Milo: I just really miss my old house, that's all.
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Dimitri: Well, this is a pretty awesome house, Milo.
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You've got a cool garden to play in and a pond.
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Milo: It was good skimming stones.
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This looks nice.
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You cleaned up my room.
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Thanks.
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PM: So after three-quarters of an hour,
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he recognizes you.
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And I promise you, if you're sitting in front of this screen,
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that is a truly wonderful moment.
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And we're ready now
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to tell a story about his childhood and his life,
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and it goes on,
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and he has, you know, many adventures.
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Some of those adventures are a little bit dark or on the darker side.
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Some of those adventures are wonderfully encouraging --
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he's got to go to school.
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The cool thing is
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that we're doing as well:
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as you interact with him,
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you're able to put things into his world; he recognizes objects.
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His mind is based in a cloud.
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That means Milo's mind,
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as millions of people use it,
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will get smarter and cleverer.
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He'll recognize more objects
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and thus understand more words.
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But for me,
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this is a wonderful opportunity
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where technology, at last, can be connected with,
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where I am no longer restrained
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by the finger I hold in my hand --
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as far as a computer game's concerned --
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or by the blandness of not being noticed
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if you're watching a film or a book.
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And I love those revolutions,
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and I love the future that Milo brings.
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Thank you very much indeed.
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(Applause)
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