Artificial intelligence has been rearing its head in video games constantly as of late from AI art in Call of Duty to a gross Batman Arkham Origins mod using an AI generated voice of deceased actor Kevin Conroy.
Speaking at a recent conference, Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot proposed a future Assassin’s Creed game that makes heavy use of generative AI to not only create a seemingly endless stream of content, but also to create a responsive facsimile of renowned philosopher Socrates.
Speaking at Saudi Arabia’s New Global Sport Conference, and reported by (paywalled) Game File, Guillemot claimed that the use of AI generated content will make worlds more reactive than before. (More than Dwarf Fortress?)
“The world we will be in will also be more intelligent,” the Ubisoft CEO said. “So, for players, the world will react to their behavior instead of pre-scripted things. We have been creating open worlds in the past, giving more choices to players, and now we will go another step further, which is… [to] make sure that you have an impact on the world, and the world will react to you. So it will be your world.”
Guillemot used the example of Socrates in Assassin’s Creed, a person that already appeared in the series as a supporting character written by humans. The Ubisoft CEO claims that the studio could create a version of the philosopher filled with his texts to make him more realistic.
“We can make sure that, when you meet with Socrates [in a game], you have all the data that’s about what he said, what he did, so you will be in front and speaking with a person that is actually very close to what that person was.”
Of course, that doesn’t mean an AI generated version of the real world philosopher would actually act like the long-dead real-life version of him. We don’t really know what Socrates was like, we don’t actually have that much information about him. We don’t know what he sounds like, how he moved or what exactly he thought about anything other than what texts of his survive. That’s why writers fill in the gaps.
Artificially generated responses have started to be used in a number of video games, although not in the level the Ubisoft CEO proposes. Epic Games infamously added an AI-powered version of Darth Vader to Fortnite, allowing players to ask him questions during gameplay.
Just an hour after launch, this AI “actor” was removed from the game after players found ways to make the character swear and spout hate speech, but it was quickly added back in a censored form.
While AI is making its controversial debut in a number of titles – including The Finals with its AI announcers – large numbers of game performers are fighting back against the technology.
In a discussion with Radio Times, Baldur’s Gate 3 actor Neil Newbon explained that a number of game developers “don’t want to use AI because it’s sh*t”.
“It doesn’t work very well. It takes a lot of effort to get something that’s half decent,” the beloved performer told the outlet.
Outside of the games industry, UK businesses who replaced real workers with AI following the boom of the technology have since regretted their decision. In a report by organizational planning platform Orgvue, over half of these businesses regret their decision. Nevertheless, the games industry is still attempting to push the technology into major productions.
