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Importance of context management in AI NPCs

walterfreedom.com

21–27 of 27 posts

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#21
post #14

My OS gets slower and buggy if I don't reboot. So I'll try to convince my users to reboot often and optimize their workflows for rebootability. Feels like trying to solve a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. Once an OS that doesn't require reboots appear, this concept will look silly and everyone that optimized their workflows for reboots will look like dorks.

It took _decades_ for things to get to the point where "turn off the computer and turn it back on again" was not the go-to advice for all desktop tech problems.

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#22
post #14

My OS gets slower and buggy if I don't reboot. So I'll try to convince my users to reboot often and optimize their workflows for rebootability. Feels like trying to solve a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. Once an OS that doesn't require reboots appear, this concept will look silly and everyone that optimized their workflows for reboots will look like dorks.

It took _decades_ for things to get to the point where "turn off the computer and turn it back on again" was not the go-to advice for all desktop tech problems.

I agree, there is no innovation whatsoever in this approach.

Furthermore, it ignores important lessons we've learned a long time ago.

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#23
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Maybe a simplified model will run to represent time passing while we are away, in games where that sort of thing matters More primitive, but this is technically how AI in Bethesda games work, has this background simulation for NPCs going on when out of sight. Think it's mainly focused on movement patterns though. Dwarf fortress as well has it's world simulation setup such that the current tile is higher precision t…

Dwarf Fortress + LLM could be a really interesting idea. Although, I also wonder if it is like… so much effort was put into the simulation itself. Almost seems like a shame to start filling any gaps with LLM, haha.

There are certain angles you just can't cover with traditional methods in my opinion, we will have to wait until people get a broader intuition on when/where to harmonize them.

For games like dwarf fortress, I think embeddings are the easiest to integrate, they can handle aspects of subjectivity we can't be easily simulated. Even simple things like a sentiment meter that measures how screwed up the world is right now would be a fun and meaningful addition. For LLMs the main value could be just having it clean up and summarize generated text, constructing a more coherent real-time narrative on what's happening in battle for example. Dwarf Fortress has so much depth to it, but comprehending it all can be overwhelming at times.

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#24
post #14

My OS gets slower and buggy if I don't reboot. So I'll try to convince my users to reboot often and optimize their workflows for rebootability. Feels like trying to solve a problem that shouldn't exist in the first place. Once an OS that doesn't require reboots appear, this concept will look silly and everyone that optimized their workflows for reboots will look like dorks.

It took _decades_ for things to get to the point where "turn off the computer and turn it back on again" was not the go-to advice for all desktop tech problems.

This actually only really applied to windows.

Bad things can happen if you just reboot Linux when you have a problem.

And macos (used to be?) something i restarted once every few months. Any issues would just need an application or finder restart at worse.

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#25

I think people forget that all AI inference is role playing to some extent. It pretends to be a chatbot, or a programmer, or whatever. There is no real difference between that and telling it to pretend to be a wizard.

I highly recommend having your prompt in Claude code or Roo or what have you include a “talk like an Arthurian wizard including in your code commits and PR‘s.” Line.

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#26

Sounds like his original system was for the AI characters to be fed all events that happen in the universe. Then he changed it so that the AI characters were only fed events they reasonably should have gotten. Makes sense and seems like a great idea. Something I wonder—often in a game, the focus follows the player character, and the universe stops when we go away. Maybe a simplified model will run to represent time p…

In X4, the space game[1], they simulate the entire "universe" in the background. That includes ships flying around trading, fighting, stations running short of supplies etc etc. To have this work on a modest computer, they have multiple fidelity levels, which primarily affects observable stuff. So near the player, all details of flight, collisions, projectiles etc are simulated. Further away certain collision checks…

not just X4 the others have similar simulation. OOS (out of sector) planning is important, a battle could be easily won or lost by leaving the sector and letting the simulation take over.

Re: Importance of context management in AI NPCs

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In X4, the space game[1], they simulate the entire "universe" in the background. That includes ships flying around trading, fighting, stations running short of supplies etc etc. To have this work on a modest computer, they have multiple fidelity levels, which primarily affects observable stuff. So near the player, all details of flight, collisions, projectiles etc are simulated. Further away certain collision checks…

not just X4 the others have similar simulation. OOS (out of sector) planning is important, a battle could be easily won or lost by leaving the sector and letting the simulation take over.

> not just X4 the others have similar

True, but X4 was the first to have a dynamic economy, and besides it's the latest one.

> a battle could be easily won or lost by leaving the sector and letting the simulation take over.

True, though a lot of that is as I understand it due to a game engine which wasn't made with offline simulation in mind, and limited funds, rather than a fundamental limitation of the method.

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