Sony is developing 'Game AI Agents' to play games with and against you

Shawn Knight

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Editor's take: As someone that grew up in a single-child home, something like this could be really appealing. When playing games as a kid, I often found that games were either too difficult to trivially easy. It wasn’t until I found the PC and got into multiplayer gaming that I really started having a good time competing against opponents of similar caliber.

Sony has confirmed it is using patented artificial intelligence-based technology to make game experiences richer and more enjoyable on the PlayStation.

In Sony’s Corporate Strategy Meeting presentation, Sony Group Corporation Chairman, President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida said Sony AI is leveraging reinforcement learning to create “Game AI Agents” that can play as an in-game opponent or alongside human players in a collaborative effort.

In-game AI, is of course, nothing new. Whether you call it “the computer,” “an NPC” or simply “the CPU,” most every title has some sort of code-based friend or foe that participates in your adventure. What Sony is aiming to do here is make those characters behave a bit more realistically and play like you’d expect a friend or family member to play.

Depending on how Sony implements the feature, the AI could model its gameplay style after you, meaning you’d always have a virtual mate with a comparable skill level to play with or against.

Image credit Mr.Mikla, maxuser

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There will never be an even match between humans and AI.

Either the humans understand the AI and its limitations and defeat it...or the AI will exploit its superhuman abilities and defeat the human.

Reminds me of when I played Quake 3 on Nightmare mode and was able to beat Xero when I realized he couldn't see me if I simply hid behind a far area pole and just took Railgun pot shots at him. He, by all means, should have been able to figure it out and adapt, but he couldn't.

He was limited by his programming and inability to adapt - and I wasn't limited by my willingness to exploit his weakness.

And these people seriously wanna put weapons in the hands of AI?
 
The utter state of gaming. The industry is basically scuttling single-player as a concept to focus on multiplayer, and is now developing AI simulacrums so people can play multiplayer games, single player. Is it any wonder why I think the industry needs a factory reset?
 
What is AI without achieving a high degree of compatibility with different type of tasks or even gameplay styles? But of course, your sniper bot or healer, tanker, etc, better know where we are supposed to be heading, rather that following its own internal pattern. The question is what computational power it has available.
 
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