From: Jochen.Fromm@t-online.de   
      
   > > If a huge company like Microsoft would concentrate on just   
   > > one thing - building an AI system - they could do it.   
   >   
   > It's problematically.   
   > AI does not lack huge money. AI lack huge ideas.   
   >   
      
   There are plenty of ideas. Buried under all the   
   waste, rubbish and nonsense, you can find even   
   in newsgroups some good ideas. Yes,   
   maybe we lack the final, crucial idea   
   how to build a real AI system. But many   
   of the ingredients are still available.   
      
   Do you know the game Dungeon Siege from   
   Microsoft ? It is only one of their games,   
   and it is great. I like the amazing 3D graphics.   
   I didn't know how many programmers   
   exactly wrote this game, but the number   
   is only a tiny fraction of the hundreds   
   of developers Microsoft employs.   
      
   I believe if all developers from Microsoft would   
   stop working on Office, Visual Studio, Windows   
   and the Internet Explorer, and would concentrate   
   on just one thing, building an AI system, they   
   could do it.   
      
   One programmer alone can't write a good   
   3D computer game anymore. In the game   
   companies usually one cares for the design and   
   the story, one creates the sound, one team   
   produces the game levels, one team the characters,   
   and finally there's a group who does the 3D   
   graphics engine.   
      
   Microsoft has everything, whole divisions of   
   programmers, researchers, developers and designers.   
   They are involved in an online game already,   
   Asheron's Call (similar to Everquest or Dark Age   
   of Camelot). Imagine they would start to create   
   a new kind of online game, as I described in the   
   original posting. And they would throw in all   
   their resources, their money and their developers.   
   Then perhaps they would be able to build   
   a system showing signs of true AI.   
      
   Of course this won't happen, because Mircosoft   
   has other interests. Another possibility is   
   that some Open Source developers will start   
   a promising project. But the chance that an   
   Open Source project will produce a product of   
   high quality or even AI is a high as the probability   
   that there is life on pluto.   
      
   ( look for example at the (poor) results of the following   
   two Open Source 3D Engine projects :   
      
   Crystal Space   
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/crystal   
      
   Ogre Object-Oriented Graphics Rendering Engine   
   http://sourceforge.net/projects/ogre   )   
      
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