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[LordOfChaos]

Ubisoft let me actually speak with its new AI-powered video game NPCs

One tried to convince me to join the resistance.

www.theverge.com

For the past three months, ever since I spoke to the AI NPCs in Nvidia's cyberpunk ramen shop, I've been wondering: Which game developer will take a flying leap on this controversial and intriguing tech? If you said "Ubisoft," the company that's always raising its hand to play with VR, NFTs, interactive TV shows, secondary screens and more, you'd be half right.

Related
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Ubisoft is testing an AI tool that writes NPC dialogue
Last night, I played three prototype segments of an experimental Ubisoft demo featuring the company's just-announced "Neo NPCs" — one of whom tried to convince me to join the resistance against powerful megacorps by playing on my emotions. Another walked me through an infiltration plan on a whiteboard, letting me "convince" her that we should knock out the lights or hack the cameras in a facility instead of resorting to brute force.

Here's a mostly raw video of my actual NPC conversations so you can judge the replies for yourself:

AI accelerators and the features they enable will surely be the big differentiating push with 10th gen, hopefully changing gameplay more than basically being the same since the PS3/360 era

 

[Represent.]

A lot of AI doesn't allow for any foul language, anything inappropriate, anything non- cookie cutter - I hope they find a way around this in games. Otherwise it will be a bunch of G rated cookie cutter PC trash we get.

We need personality and character, which none of these AI platforms can offer

 

[ByWatterson]

AI is how AA developers will make Bethesda-scope titles.

And it's going to be amazing.

 

[Rat Rage]

 

[LazyParrot]

AI is how AA developers will make Bethesda-scope titles.

And it's going to be amazing.

I think it's going to be absolutely awful, but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

 

[TVexperto]

that demo was actually pretty good, guess not everybody is working on more icons for the next ac game

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Yep, that's a UBI npc alright

 

[Spyxos]

 

[nkarafo]

Yeah, that's what i always wanted more from videogames. More talking.

 

[jshackles]

Last night, I played three prototype segments of an experimental Ubisoft demo featuring the company's just-announced "Neo NPCs" — one of whom tried to convince me to join the resistance against powerful megacorps by playing on my emotions. Another walked me through an infiltration plan on a whiteboard, letting me "convince" her that we should knock out the lights or hack the cameras in a facility instead of resorting to brute force.

We all know this is Watch_Dogs, right?

 

[Cyberpunkd]

that demo was actually pretty good, guess not everybody is working on more icons for the next ac game

90% of writers are shaking, considering this was better than all the crap they wrote.

 

[IDKFA]

A lot of AI doesn't allow for any foul language, anything inappropriate, anything non- cookie cutter - I hope they find a way around this in games. Otherwise it will be a bunch of G rated cookie cutter PC trash we get.

We need personality and character, which none of these AI platforms can offer

This.

What if I say something that the AI deems offensive, or tell an NPC to chew my dick? Does the AI report me to the authorities? As I live in the UK, I could get into a lot of trouble for saying the wrong thing, regardless of context.

Unless this is addressed, I'll have to pass on this tech.

 

[Wonko_C]

Wake me up until an MMO character can not only talk, but act like it was completely sentient like in Shangri-La Frontier.

 

[Krappadizzle]

It's almost assuredly the future for general NPC's with story-important characters being "hand" written, I'm all for the tech in general principle but it does set a strange precedent with pretty sweeping ramifications that should be approached with caution.

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

90% of writers are shaking, considering this was better than all the crap they wrote.

How to convince people of something impossible (a machine doing a creative job better than humans) in three steps:

1 - Hire the worst writers possible.

2 - Lower the standards for a full generation.

3 - Replace them with a machine that is also bad but still better than those awful non-writers.

 

[ReyBrujo]

Waiting for the first game that has an NPC splurt the whole source code of the game when asked the right questions.

 

[LordOfChaos]

I don't think human writers are going away, rather that this will be used for a lot of the side characters and non-core story interactions, which actually frees them up to work more on the core story rather than writing shit like "I'm swwworrn to carry your burdens" 10,000 variations over

 

[Deerock71]

that demo was actually pretty good, guess not everybody is working on more icons for the next ac game

Absolutely Awful. The new AA.

 

[Kataploom]

Ubisoft let me actually speak with its new AI-powered video game NPCs

One tried to convince me to join the resistance.

www.theverge.com

AI accelerators and the features they enable will surely be the big differentiating push with 10th gen, hopefully changing gameplay more than basically being the same since the PS3/360 era

As soon as I saw the character model I felt I was seeing something Ubisoft-ish, what is it?

 

[Chuck Berry]

AI is how AA developers will make Bethesda-scope titles.

And it's going to be amazing.

No it wont

 

[Xtib81]

Probably one of the next big breakthroughs in gaming. Being able to speak to any NPC would be great.

 

[simpatico]

No doubt the LLM they chose to do the dialog is completely insufferable.

Very cool in theory, but 0% chance UbiSoft does it justice.

 

[Evolved1]

This is inevitable and I look forward to progress and iteration. BG3 is currently the pinnacle of open-ended, player-choice driven games. And it's not good enough. I appreciate all the work they did, but it's really not true DnD. I dropped the game eventually because it just couldn't deliver the real experience. Too many times the game forced my character into a false or inauthentic choice... they just couldn't offer enough options in dialog that would actually represent my character/ situation, and would force a dialog option that felt flat-out wrong. And honestly, pretty stupid a lot of times.

Again, an immense amount of work and truly a labor of love... I commend them for their achievement with the game. But it demonstrates the inherent problem... even that team, with a clear vision and years of work, cannot deliver the real experience. It MUST be generative. And eventually it will be. I imagine a team like Larian having powerful tools, where they can pick and choose where to handcraft, and how to implement a vision not constrained by the harsh realities of modern game dev.

Probably will catch a lot if flak for this, but it's how I feel.

 

[Gaelyon]

AI is going to totally revolutionize mankind. Gaming is just a drop in the ocean deep that will be AI tech these coming decades.
Like all new tech era, this is both exciting and worrying as the possibilities seems endless and so potentially disruptives it makes you dizzy to think about it.
Medicine, biology, art, writing, cars, services, gaming of course and many more will be transformed and by extension our lives.

for instance :



It's just the beginning. So Ubisoft AI for NPC is interesting but just a small step toward a hurricane of changes.

 

[IDKFA]

The article doesn't say how the chatbot responds to random questions outside the game universe.

For example, what if I told an NPC something random, such as I like to trim my toe nails with a banana, or I like to eat my own face, or even:

Spoiler

How does it reponed? If it refuses to acknowledge anything outside the game world then it's pointless. If it will react to anything I say with a coherent answer, then we're getting somewhere.

 

[Wildebeest]

A lot of AI doesn't allow for any foul language, anything inappropriate, anything non- cookie cutter - I hope they find a way around this in games. Otherwise it will be a bunch of G rated cookie cutter PC trash we get.

We need personality and character, which none of these AI platforms can offer

Even if you use uncensored models, you will find the stories they have been trained on are publicly available fan fiction. It can be cheesy as fuck. Even if you have a story where Satan laughs while feeding beloved characters one by one into a wood chipper, it will end the story with a cute little message about how much personal growth the main character experienced thanks to the events of the story and how it all ended up happy ever after.

 

[WitchHunter]

Now games will have to join this fucking madness. Giving fellation to AI. AI is so good, it must be included somehow in our games, otherwise we would be peasants. 99% of games have terrible, shit, boring, useless, filler dialogues. And now... LLM based statistical shit gonna solve this problem, when most of the time NPCs already blabber too much shit that is worthless?!

These knuckleheads never played games? I don't want to speak with an npc, I wan't to have an experience with an NPC. That NPC has to give me some good lines, moves, body language, whatever that stimulates me. That's why you hire good actors for movies for a LOT OF MONEY, so those lines that sound like shit from an average joe would sound like the bible from someone capable, who can sell it to you, because that person is an expert. Not some generated shit that goes on and on and on. All this shit serves one purpose: to bring more viewers to the already braindead streamers who will applaud this tech, because they could pull out some wacky sentence from one of the AI based NPCs and show it like it's some groundbreaking thing.

Bring ze flammenwerfer!

 

[Braag]

Why do Ubisoft NPC faces always look like they've been made out of cookie dough.

 

[WitchHunter]

Why do Ubisoft NPC faces always look like they've been made out of cookie dough.

Because you can't create cutting edge things, otherwise the cookie monster will come for you and steal your souls.

 

[semiconscious]

How to convince people of something impossible (a machine doing a creative job better than humans) in three steps:

1 - Hire the worst writers possible.

2 - Lower the standards for a full generation.

3 - Replace them with a machine that is also bad but still better than those awful non-writers.

yep. what's easier to do: actually make ai smarter, or simply make people dumber?...

 

[Audiophile]

Excited for the tech but we just know they're all going to be vetted by the DEI department, as PC as possible and totally on "the message".

Gonna be like talking with the REEEEE hivemind.

 

[darrylgorn]

Skyrim VR with AI Lydia is always a good time.

 

[darrylgorn]

Why do Ubisoft NPC faces always look like they've been made out of cookie dough.

 

[Evolved1]

If you don't think these models will be able to interact with authentic dialog within the context of their fictional narratives... you're truly not paying attention.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I think it's going to be absolutely awful, but I wouldn't mind being proven wrong.

 

[Evolved1]

BTW, for the record I don't think Ubisoft will be the company that gets this right. They are a fucking dumpster fire.

 

[TheInfamousKira]

So, Ubisoft AI, what do you think the meaning of life is?

UBIAI: I'm not sure, shall we check the uPlay store and see if they have any meaning of life On discount?

 

[Kacho]

A lot of AI doesn't allow for any foul language, anything inappropriate, anything non- cookie cutter - I hope they find a way around this in games. Otherwise it will be a bunch of G rated cookie cutter PC trash we get.

We need personality and character, which none of these AI platforms can offer

Couldn’t agree more. When it’s purposely limited like other AI tools are it loses its magic.

 

[WitchHunter]

BTW, for the record I don't think Ubisoft will be the company that gets this right. They are a fucking dumpster fire.

I don't think companies have "free will" regarding the content they create for the masses... And I don't think certain creatives, who are above threshold, can do whatever they want.

 

[Slimboy Fat]

It can't be worse than some of the human writing we have nowadays

 

[Shadowplay1979]

This is basically what ive dreamed about since a child but also with the sensibilities and ideologies of gen z game makers.....its really gonna be no different then scripted language or the censorship of commercial ai

now if this were made by someone that played Police Quest growing up

the first thing that would have been said to the blonde haired woman would have been "show me them tittays bitch" just to see how she responds....and not pretend its not what you wanted to try

 

[chlorate]

I guess making in-game barks less repetitive may not be everyone’s cup of Liber-tea

 

[Toots]

For those types of tech to truly work, we still need to dumb down society a notch.
On this we can have faith in our leaders, a generation or two going the same direction and humanity will be ripe.

 

[crackajack]

I don'T know exactly what it was before in previous games on older consoles, just reading the text prompts I think, but voice commands being disabled on PS5 (and I believe XSX as well) in F1 2023 since it would interfere with other voice stuff of the console or whatever is strange to say the least. This is the game were I immediately think, talking to my race engineer would be great, has explicitly stated voice command not supported in the corner. Next gen progress...
Proper free speech not just reading predefined texts would be interesting for sure. But ready for shipping are these AI Chats things probably not soon. 18+ probably required as minimum and all sorts of disclaimers that they can't be held liable for ill advise and what not.

 

[ResilientBanana]

A lot of AI doesn't allow for any foul language, anything inappropriate, anything non- cookie cutter - I hope they find a way around this in games. Otherwise it will be a bunch of G rated cookie cutter PC trash we get.

We need personality and character, which none of these AI platforms can offer

Sure but, there are some NPC's throughout games you never truly have to interact with, it would be nice to see their responses be AI generated and not so much the main characters. Having a conversation with a random NPC would be fun. Not to mention AI technologies have made strides in just 1 year. As we move forward, telling the line between voice acting and AI will blur

 

[cireza]

So instead of having to read "Yes" or "No" or "Maybe", we will instead get endless walls of text.

I can already see how this is going to be a way to pad games even further and make it unbearable.

 

[Arachnid]

AI will write better than anyone at Ubisoft.

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

It can't be worse than some of the human writing we have nowadays

Exactly my thought. So much video game writing is fucking terrible. Like, worse than the Saturday morning cartoons I watched in the 80s. Seems like this would improve the quality of the writing. I can definitely see a near future when only the key characters are written by humans.

Having a LLM generate dialog in real time seems kinda pointless for most games though. I’d think it makes more sense to generate + tweak it offline. Generating dialog live in-game seems like it’d only be desirable for some dynamic non-linear RPG.



I just hope they train their models on the best writing, not on like, Marvel movie shit (they won’t)

 

[Hudo]

AI will write better than anyone at Ubisoft.

Also better than anyone at Bethesda

 

[K' Dash]

It can't be worse than some of the human writing we have nowadays

well, the data they use to train these models is not out of thin air, they use the same awful writing to do it, and the good stuff too.