Last week, a couple of us were briefly captivated by the simulated lives of "generative agents" created by researchers from Stanford and Google. Led by PhD student Joon Sung Park, the research team populated a pixel art world with 25 NPCs whose actions were guided by ChatGPT and an "agent architecture that stores, synthesizes, and applies relevant memories to generate believable behavior." The result was both mundane and compelling.
One of the agents, Isabella, invited some of the other agents to a Valentine's Day party, for instance. As word of the party spread, new acquaintances were made, dates were set up, and eventually the invitees arrived at Isabella's place at the correct time. Not exactly riveting stuff, but all that behavior began as one "user-specified notion" that Isabella wanted to throw a Valentine's Day party. The activity that emerged happened between the large language model, agent architecture, and an "interactive sandbox environment" inspired by The Sims. Giving Isabella a different notion, like that she wanted to punch everyone in the town, would've led to an entirely different sequence of behaviors.
