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Sony's new patent can automatically spot, censor, or even replace problematic content in real time, turning mature scenes into kid-friendly experience
- Thread starter LectureMaster
- Start date
- News Game Dev
LordCBH
Member
Ever since they moved PlayStation HQ to fucking Commiefornia.
LordCBH
Member
daclynk
Member
Early peview of the AI in action:
Hudo
Member
Why does this need a patent at all? I don't want a console to interfere with what I am doing. The console just needs to play the fucking game and fuck off otherwise.
Ar¢tos
Member
Sony registers tons of patents every year for tons of different things and very few ever get applied to anything.
It's just a patent, and even if it is implemented it's only to chosen profiles, I don't understand why people are crying WAHHH CENSORSHIP over this.
Sony as a platform holder could make developers censor games in any way Sony wanted, there would be no need to patent this if their goal was just to censor games.
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Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
midnightAI
Member
Because they could create single content for 18+ and then use AI to make that content suitable for younger ages. It would be your choice to turn that on or off or it would be based on your date of birth for the logged in account.
It needs a patent because the idea is a good one in theory so they want to protect that idea.
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JohnnyFootball
GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I am mostly opposed to this, but not completely. I would be OK as long as we adults have the option to keep it.
StereoVsn
Gold Member
One of the reasons CCP has been heavily investing into AI is capability for pervasive censorship without the need to have hundreds of thousands of censors to monitor everything.
I collect VHS tapes
Gold Member
only a matter of time before they start using this to inject DEI in their games, like adding diversity to kcd 2
Mozza
Member
Of course not, and anyone thinking so is delusional.... But they don't have to go after the porn... That's a bit below the belt.
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Topher
Identifies as young
Walliwallipaloo
Member
"Insert deepfake replacement content."
And here I thought that term was homebrew. That is quite unsettling, to see it used seriously and officially.
AI shitshow.
And here I thought that term was homebrew. That is quite unsettling, to see it used seriously and officially.
AI shitshow.
DenchDeckard
Moderated wildly
I'm hoping for a kind of semi crash which causes a hardware regression in some ways. This DDR situation will help to be honest but prices need to go back to being a low barrier to entry with lower specs imo forcing Devs to do a better job getting games to run well.
There would be a kind of crash but really developers that love games would find ways to deliver awesome games for budgets of like 5 to 10 million and then let them steadily increase again.(Expedition 33 style)
So Games only need a few million to be successful, we who love games get to play awesome games not ruined all the slop.
There's probably no chance and we will be all forced to stream games.......
Fake
Member
For lazy and stupid parents, yes.
Angry_Megalodon
Member
From a conceptual point of view, the idea is very bad.
The line between mature and kids content is deeper than boobs and gore. The inventor of this believes that movies like Starship Troopers or games like TLOU would be suitable for kinds if they removed the explicit parts and that's wrong.
I don't want videogames or movies made by algorithms that try to "optimize their target audiences" by delivering slop that could be consumed equally censored/uncensored.
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Radical_3d
Member
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Wake me up when even 10% of these patents we always rage about for over 2 decades on here, ever come to fruition.
Most patents are filed to prevent/block others from even doing certain things, and they tend to vault them forever in those endeavors.
Most patents are filed to prevent/block others from even doing certain things, and they tend to vault them forever in those endeavors.
Loomy
Thinks Microaggressions are Real
Mostly this.
Fess
Member
If it can automatically turn a not quite child friendly game safe then what's the problem?
It's not like it's meant to be used for adults.
LordCBH
Member
Wait you mean you don't have to stand up and yell McDonald's at the tv to get the boot up ad to go away when you try to launch a PS5 game?
AM I THE ONLY ONE?!
Fake
Member
The problem? The game already have age restriction, the console already have age restriction that you can configure on the fly.
All those things can be used anytime, never used for lazy one thats for sure.
If Sony want to help parents they should restrict credit card used from kids.
DeepEnigma
Gold Member
Fess
Member
What if a game don't need to have age restrictions with this tech? What if you can just set your age and the game will automatically get tuned for your age? Maybe it could tweak Horizon to not have human kills so it becomes the ultimate kids game - I mean, it has Dinosaurs and Robots!
Angry_Megalodon
Member
Danny22
Member
Are customers who glaze a game and company (like BG3) and then immediately turn on it after a bad headline (AI) the friends of these corporations?
Topher
Identifies as young
There is no friendship either way.
Dorfdad
Gold Member
Exactly bean counters ruining everything trying to appeal to everyone.
PeteBull
Member
Dont worry just yet, google stadia had sold terribly and every trailer of it had extremly terrible views numbers, amazon's luna is 10x as worse/has even worse views numbers, so we will be all long dead or enjoying our proper stationary ps9 before actual streaming/cloud future comes to life
darrylgorn
Member
What are you talking about? Mortal Kombat was obviously the most kid-friendly game ever:
Oh man, the days before every rainbow meant gay.
Dirk Benedict
Gold Member
Starting with those who are too ambitious for society.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
I'm too buzzed to understand that thread name. But it seems to me that Sony is continuing down the wrong path.
FoxMcChief
Gold Member
My brain is broken.AI when it tries to figure out what to do with TLoU2:
Sony Says FUDGE Age Restrictions With New AI Censorship Patent - Retro Handhelds
Sony patented AI that can detect and sanitize violent, sexual, or profane content in games in real time, letting parents set rules and profiles across devices.retrohandhelds.gg
Sony, ever the pioneer, is toying with a future where any game can be flipped into "kid-friendly" mode on demand, and an AI system is holding the scissors. A newly surfaced patent outlines tech that can automatically spot, censor, or even replace problematic content in real time, turning mature scenes into PG experiences without the developer manually building a family-friendly version of the game.
At the core is an AI that analyzes what is happening on screen, violence, gore, sexual content, profanity, or other sensitive material, and then dynamically intervenes. Instead of a fixed content filter, this system responds to what the player is actually seeing or hearing at that moment.
The patent describes the AI muting dialogue, blurring or masking visual elements, or outright swapping assets like blood effects, animations, or character models to make scenes less intense. Because the system is rules-based, parents or guardians could pick from preset profiles or define their own boundaries for what is acceptable.
This goes several steps beyond classic platform-level parental controls that just block entire games or enforce age ratings. Instead of saying "no" to a title entirely, the AI tries to reshape it so it can still be played, just sanitized. In theory, that could let one copy of a game work for both adults and kids in the same household, with the content adapting per user account.
The system is also pitched as platform-agnostic, meaning it could operate across different devices and services, not just a single console generation. That raises the possibility of AI censorship baked into cloud gaming, streaming, or future subscription platforms, where content is filtered in real time at the service level.
On paper, the idea sounds convenient for families, but it also opens a huge can of worms around creative intent and control. If a platform owner can algorithmically redact scenes, tone, and themes, it effectively gains a new level of editorial power over games that were not designed to be altered this way.
There are also obvious questions around accuracy and bias: what the AI flags as "unsafe," how often it misfires, and whether developers or players get any say beyond whatever presets the platform offers. For now, this is only a patent, but it gives a pretty clear window into how aggressively Sony is thinking about using AI to reshape what players actually see on screen.
midnightAI
Member
But it's the choice of the user/user settings, this is about opening games up to a wider audience without a massive amount of work to create that extra content. It means they don't have to compromise content due to hitting an age rating.
Not that anything will probably happen with this patent for the foreseeable future, but you are looking at it the wrong way, it could increase the 'adultness' (if there was such a word) of games instead of making games tamer
midnightAI
Member
This is the exact patent, noone is getting their games censored if you are already over 18What if a game don't need to have age restrictions with this tech? What if you can just set your age and the game will automatically get tuned for your age? Maybe it could tweak Horizon to not have human kills so it becomes the ultimate kids game - I mean, it has Dinosaurs and Robots!
Heimdall_Xtreme
Hermen Hulst Fanclub's #1 Member
I still remember when Playstation offered these games and it was great... Not now with the idiots Jim Ryan and Hulst.
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Tajaz2426
Psychology PhD from Wikipedia University
Wow, the Debbie does Dallas VHS, was the first porno I found of the old man's somewhere in the 80s.This wouldn't be limited to playstation or even just video games. Imagine the possibilities....
Man of the world, I see good sir.
