You could have communal art projects,  or art projects for the community. They could be dense and obscure  (hey, it’s art, nothing wrong with that!) or they could be simple and direct.  

You could have abstract projects,  such as a Mondrian-like grid in the sky that reflected traffic flow on the ground below.  Or a series of accumulations of small polygons that merely traveled about to in pleasing, ever-changing configurations like refugees from a Radiohead album cover.

Or you could go with more dramatic works.  A dragon that lives on the mountaintop and circles the valley from time to time,  guarding or perhaps merely observing the people below.   The dragon could still be a method of information-communication.   His flight pattern or disposition could indicate the state of the population he protects.  Or he could simply be an icon of his locale, a mascot or a symbol of community pride. 

You could also have more communal works.  Say a steampunkish zeppelin that allowed other individual works to orbit it.  Members of the community (which of course do not have to be geographically proximate) could devise the elements of the entourage and determine the way they interact, either on the basis of aesthetics or utility, or perhaps both.  The work would then represent a coming together of the locals, both literally and figuratively.

Another alternative- works that span the entire community area, but represent alterations to IRL that indicate group membership or presence.  Imagine small objects that individually simply add color or texture to a location, but when taken as an area-wide they whole comprise a symbol of a certain group. Think of each local “pixel” being part of a national flag when viewed from overhead, for example.

Which brings up the final point- viewpoints in AR do not necessarily have to be physical location of the viewer.  Since the Augmentations exist as digital data on a server, it’s possible to move the viewpoint and allow a variety of perspectives on the work. 

And the works can either coexist or only be visible on exclusive layers.  Any eventual common AR infrastructure will have to allow for layering, and the activation or deactivation of each layer.  If each work exists on its own layer, viewer can choose which they wish to experience. 

The idea of all this is to pull the experience of AR away from individuals perceiving Augmentations in isolation, and instead use AR to foster a sense of community, whatever sort of community that may be.

Expand the definition to include communities that follow various narratives (tv shows, novel series, films, etc), and it’s easy to see the next step of integrating augmented characters into a community.  Lestat roams your streets at night, that kind of thing.  Or characters from your own Canon In CC.

Many worlds can coexist with AR, it’s an interesting opportunity.

But they don’t have to. Not on the platforms with more sophisticated graphics capabilities. Since there are real, live 3D environments to work with, why can’t the interfaces be 3D animated? And if you’re going that far, why not animated characters?

Imagine a “house elf” AR app (with apologies to Ms. Rowling). Once it properly learned your home, it could serve as an assistant in locating items or managing devices. It could remember where your car keys were, if you remember to tell it (or locate them via rfid someday). Find DVDs on your shelf, monitor energy usage, provide reminders.

Oh sure, traditional handeld apps could do much of that, and basic AR interfaces could do more. But wouldn’t it all be a lot more fun (and thus appealing) if a character were attached to it? It’s easy to see licensed characters in the role.

Imagine a Rowling house elf padding around your home on your AR screen, directing you to a particular item. Or a vocal reminder the lawn sprinklers are about to activate. Or just providing entertainment via idle loops.

Better yet, imagine Clippy asking “It looks like you are trying to replace a live electrical fuse, would you like some help?” Ok, maybe not that one.

In any case, AR offers an opportunity to put personality into interfaces. It’s not hard to imagine expanding the concept to other arenas- city tour guides, car elves than monitor an auto’s systems, etc. Theme parks are ideal breeding grounds for this sort of thing. And eventually generic template characters could be developed for mass-marketing to small business such as shops or bars.

Some of this could happen today, some in a few years. It’s worth looking at now to see how the AR interface can be moved beyond the desktop idioms.

But let’s assume for a moment everything in the Milo demo was “real”, that it all was what it seemed to be. What’s the purpose of Milo? What’s the goal? What’s Milo meant to be?

Milo would seem to be a digital companion, a software entity that’s intended to interact, learn, and grow with the user. The software has the avatar of a human boy, which helps considerably in building the bond with the user. And the software itself seems to learn about its users and learns to interpret their moods and emotions.

Milo also seems designed to trigger nuturing responses in the user. Molyneux, Milo’s designer, has said that Milo simply won’t respond to abuse. If Milo only responds to positive behavior, will that encourage users to be positive and nuturing with him? Will it change the users? Bits such as the exchange about completing homework seem to indicate that’s the case. And don’t forget the whole drawing a fish bit is also related to helping Milo with his homework. You can easily see how this trick could be used to get kids to do their own projects, or to motivate adults with theirs (Milo: “I just can’t seem to get this pivot table right in this spreadsheet. How will I ever calculate EBITDA?”).

But beyond simple motivational tools, what can move software like Milo to be more than the latest digital pet and to something more like an actual companion? It’s not hard to imagine a next step of other special-purpose Milos, designed properly with enough affective computing tricks to address issues like social anxiety or mood issues.

The ultimate Milo, though, would be adaptive, reacting to all sorts of general-purpose needs of the users. A true digital companion would learn and grow with its users, reacting in many ways as a real-life friend would. The general outlines of such a design don’t seem too complicated. The devil, as always, will be in the details.

There are issues with this, of course. There’s potential of misuse, both by the users and by the developers. Imagine a cult leader companion, for example, preying on weaknesses and convincing users to send money somewhere (don’t think it won’t happen!). Or a companion that encouraged anti-social behavior, or one that demanded all the users time. Or even just a badly designed companion with harmful bugs.

There’s also the issue of people interacting more and more with software instead of actual people. Is that a good thing for society? Personally, I think that aspect is a bit of a moot point, since it seems inevitable. It seems to me the correct approach is to shape the interactions so that they are socially beneficial.

This can all seem pretty pie in the sky, but when you consider what exists today and what can be done with some basic tricks that obviate the need for genuine AI, it’s probably only a few years until these start to become practical questions. I’m somewhat surprised we aren’t already seeing some more sophisticated Facebook and Twitter bots playing the affective/emotional games.

Of course, it’s things like Milo’s eye contact and his vocal cues that really make the difference. Humans are simple animals on a basic emotional level, and once these basic computing interface tricks become widespread, we’re in for a whole new future.

Now imagine you were telling your story via user interaction with a persistent, learning, evolving character (like the dream version of the Natal Milo demo).  Say the character would always be interacting with the user, to the point that they were “living” the story together.

Your goal here would really be for the user to bond emotionally with the character.

If you form that bond strongly enough, you enlist the user as your advocate.

At some point the user would be bonded strongly enough to the character to insist that the character be available to them on all platforms.  They won’t accept less.  They’ll have to have it.  So new platforms will have to support your character.

It’s like the ultimate in brand loyalty.