Second Life, The Internet based virtual world developed by Linden Research, which was until now teeming with teens and other social networking freaks now has a new member named Edd Hifeng. This robotic looking avatar can be mistook for any other resident on the network – a bot controlled by a human – but he is a bit different as he is controlled by a AI driven computer.

His movements and interactions on the Second Life network are driven AI created by researchers of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and they have been able to inject a limited amount of reasoning and conversation abilities into him. Second Life is now seen as a risk free and inexpensive platform for AI research. Selmer Bringsjord, director of the Rensselaer Artificial Intelligence and Reasoning Laboratory said “It's a very inexpensive way to test out our technologies right now”.