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Jeff Orkin
Jeff Orkin, Ph.D. is a prominent figure in the field of artificial intelligence, particularly in conversational AI and game AI. Here are some key details about his background and current role:
Professional Experience
Jeff Orkin is currently the Cofounder and CEO of Bitpart.ai, a company focused on AI technology.6 Prior to this, he held the position of Head of the Drift AI Lab at Drift, though his most recent posts indicate he has moved on from that role.
Academic Background
He holds a Ph.D., which he pursued at the MIT Media Lab in the Cognitive Machines Group. His research there focused on AI for characters that learn by observing humans playing online multiplayer games.2
Industry Experience
Game Development: Orkin has an extensive background in game development AI:
- He worked as a Senior Engineer at Monolith Productions, developing AI systems for games like No One Lives Forever 2 and F.E.A.R.2
- He has been credited on 12 games, including titles like Middle-earth: Shadow of War and the F.E.A.R. series2
Entrepreneurship:
- Founder and CEO of Giant Otter Technologies, a company that developed conversational AI technology1
- Currently leading Bitpart.ai, which appears to be his latest venture in the AI space6
Recent Activities
- Orkin has been actively hiring for roles at Bitpart.AI, indicating the company is in a growth phase4
- He recently announced the addition of new team members to Bitpart, with a focus on developing their Unreal 5 technology5
Social Media Presence
Jeff Orkin is active on social media platforms:
- His LinkedIn username is indeed "jorkin"3
- He also maintains a Twitter account under the handle @jorkin6
Jeff Orkin's career demonstrates a consistent focus on advancing AI technologies, particularly in the realms of conversational AI and game AI, spanning both academic research and industry applications.
Highlights
We’ve been working on some cool character tech since late 2022. We started development about a month before the debut of chatGPT.
The release of ChatGPT ushered in a wave of developers and startups focusing on chatbot NPCs. While this new capability was intriguing, we decided to stay the course with our focus on AI characters designed to participate in core 𝐠𝐚𝐦𝐞𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐲 in mainstream PC and console games.
Our characters are aware of their surroundings, interact with props and furniture, execute interruptible multi-step plans. They do converse as well, of course. Players can strike up a conversation with our characters at any time. But our dialogue content is authored by designers (with optional AI assistance), rather than generated on the fly, ensuring meaningful, grounded interactions.
For some applications, like XR, open-ended chat based dialogue could be beneficial, for example enabling hands-free voice input. It is possible to layer in this mode of interaction, integrated with our behavioral engine.
We started showing a demo of our characters to studios at GDC 2024, behind closed doors. We’d like to start sharing quick peeks at what we’re building more publicly in short video clips. To get started, here is a brief look at a bartender in a western saloon that we created in March for GDC, running with the Bitpart Unity SDK.
I’ve written a bit more about our bartender on Substack. If you’d like to try our demos or explore Bitpart.AI for your own project(s), we are signing people up for our Tech Preview. Links to both in the comments below.
We spoke with MIT Technology Review about how AI is enabling improvisational casts of characters for games. Niall Firth does a good job of highlighting the tension between content generation and human authorship -- NPCs who could support games with infinite content, and NPCs who participate and converse flexibly within the bounds of human-directed stories.
We're in good company in the article alongside others exploring and inventing in this new frontier, including Inworld AI, Character.AI, modl.ai, and Hidden Door. Article linked in the first comment.
