Designing the behaviors of La Machine
Very happy to be designing the behaviors of La Machine by Multiplié !
Re-invention of the “ultimate machine” invented by Artificial Intelligence pioneer Marvin Minsky, La Machine implements the simple action of turning itself off when you turn it on. Ultimate. But... it has moods, it remembers you, it expresses itself, it gets bored, it gets upset, it is playful, it has internal states, it is unpredictable.
My mission, in collaboration with sound artist Tapetronic and codemaster Paul Guyot under the high guidance of visionary Olivier Mevel, is to give La Machine an identity, a personnality, a presence: an Umwelt. The challenge is to do this using the minimal 1 dimension actuator which turns the switch off. But it has many ways to do it ! And timing is the essence.
I have been the Behavioral Designer of previous "smart" objects imagined by Olivier Mevel with Rafi Haladjian : the famous Nabaztag rabbit, the Dal lamp.., and I am really excited to work on this new object. Crafting the algorithms to embody immaterial qualities like moods, desires, internal balances and imbalances, conflicts, manifestations... into simple objects that interact with the world and with humans. It is like creating a little artificial being of its own. I like giving life to objects, and in addition to my collaborations in the "smart" objects field, I have been pushing this approach really far in my artistic creations. In these times of LLMs, it is a different approach to "intelligence", more ontological, infra-language, a sort of pre-AI.
For those interested, La Machine is in pre-sales. It will be on the market in the coming weeks!
La Machine, by Multiplé
Concept by Olivier Mevel
Object design by Elium Studio. Sounds by Tapetronic (@alexismalbert@mastodon.social). Code by Paul Guyot. Behaviors by Antoine Schmitt.








