A key theme of my work over the last few years has been exploring how we, as humans, interact with the devices and services around us—whether they are physical or virtual. Much of what I do blends real and virtual environments, creating experiences where these two realms intersect.
More recently, we've gained the ability to do more straightforward language processing on devices, and chat interfaces have exploded in popularity - think Slack, Discord, or WhatsApp. This shift led me to experiment with virtual bots, combining data or capabilities from the physical world into their design.
I had the opportunity to dive into this topic at DDD Melbourne, where I hosted a workshop. Together with participants, we built physical devices and connected them to Slack bots.
Through this process, the group began creating embodied agents - bots that could sense and interact with their physical surroundings. These agents not only took input from the real world but also reflected emotional responses in their dialogue, driven by environmental cues.
The slides and code from the session are embedded and linked below.
Building Embodied Bots with JavaScript - (CC) ajfisher
Large version is available at embodiedbots.ajf.io