NPC is a rare insult meme that has interesting philosophical depth and practical value.
The intuitive but confused linking of [outer] NPChood and [inner] p-zombiehood reveals the same kind of logical misstep that leads to Strong AI/not grokking ‘hard problem of consciousness’
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Philosophy of Mind has a huge literature on zombies.
How would you distinguish NPCs from zombies?
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They’re not really related. The whole point of the p-zombie is to argue that outer behavior need reveal no sign of nonbeing inside. NPC is specifically a behavioral signature: a simple predictable character. You could be neither, either, or both.
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I've never played video-games.
Is there no effort to program NPCs to be better simulations of humans?

