'Artificial: Remote Intelligence' Week 5: Meet Zander, Dante Basco's new character and rival to Sebastian
'Artificial: Remote Intelligence' has been giving its users more involvement than ever before. No longer just weighing in on important choices during the live-streams, the curtain is being pulled back, and the chat is being allowed to make choices that build the world of 'Artificial' and design the characters who will be in it. Last week was the mysterious Kira, and this week, the chat designed an all-new character, Zander, who will be played by Dante Basco.
Zander quickly shaped up to be quite a memorable character. A lot darker than Kira, the chat determined that Zander would be Sebastian's (Stephen Chang) rival. The chat then decided the connection that Zander has to Sebastian, and they've chosen to make things personal. Zander is one of Sebastian's childhood friends, but they're no longer friendly. Showrunner Bernie Su, Dante Basco and the chat were immediately all excited about the idea of Zander's appearance on the show giving us more of a glimpse into Sebastian's history, finding out what he was like as a child.
It's from this point on that Zander's character grew from compelling to outright strange. From the chat, Basco chose several personality traits, making Zander a flamboyant playboy with a dark sense of humor, with the chat voting on the fourth personality trait. Superstition beat out flirtatiousness, a short temper, and cold calculation, and it's the superstitious aspect that played a big part in Zander's development going forward.
When deciding his flaws, the fans put up some interesting options like having a God complex, a gambling addiction, and most intriguingly, speaking with the dead. The audience voted for the safe option, much to the disappointment of Bernie Su, making Zander controlling. The chat remained intrigued with the "speaks dead," enough to resurrect the concept. When deciding what Zander does in his free time, two poll options leaned distinctly necromantic; ghost hunting, and being a medium. The medium hobby won out, and it looks like Zander's going to be speaking to the dead after all.
More quirks were added, giving Zander a "quirky sign-off" we're going to see whenever he ends a video, a decision that might backfire as much as giving Lilith (Tiffany Chu) sarcasm did. Before ending, however, the chat got to make another significant choice: whether Zander was for, or against self-aware artificial intelligences like Lilith. Leaning into his superstition, Zander is dead set against them, which seemingly defines what his rivalry with Sebastian is going to be about. It would appear that Zander views AI as a threat, especially given his catchprase: "No Intelligence is Artificial."
While it might be a few episodes before Zander shows up on the series, the chat's other live-designed character, Kira, will be making her very first appearance next week. In the meanwhile, Bernie Su and the writing team of 'Artificial' are going to get cracking to figure out a way to make this dark, occultic, strange character fit into the scientific setting of 'Artificial: Remote Intelligence."
The next episode of 'Artifical: Remote Intelligence' airs on July 2 at 6 pm PT on Twitch.tv/ArtificialNext.