Sony patent describes an AI that plays games for you

[midian182]

WTF?! Artificial intelligence is advancing at a rate so fast that it verges on concerning. While a recently published patent from Sony doesn’t have the potential to threaten humanity, hopefully, it’s still one of those WTF moments: an AI that plays games for you and in your own distinct style.

As reported by Segment Next, Sony’s patent covers a technology that trains a bot in the user’s playstyle. The AI starts with a basic set of behaviors that evolve as it monitors the player’s actions and decisions. The result is a bot that plays in a way indistinguishable from the person that trained its neural network.

You might be wondering, “what’s the point?” Who would buy a game only to let a machine play for them? But there are some interesting applications, such as being able to walk away from the keyboard/controller to go to the bathroom and letting the AI take over. The feature would be helpful in online games that can’t be paused, though it could lead to a scenario of multiplayer titles filled exclusively with bots battling each other.

The AI may also benefit players with accessibility needs who require assistance in certain sections. Maybe it could be set away grinding while players do something less tedious, too.

Other parts of the patent describe a game notifying players struggling to complete a task it could help them with, which sounds like a version of Clippy that’s actually useful. If the AI also finds the objective too difficult, it can automatically search online guides for help, mimicking the actions of a real person.

As with all patents, there’s no guarantee this one will become a reality, and even if it does, don’t expect to be able to call on the AI version of you for help anytime soon.

Image credit: Jinning Li

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https://www.techspot.com/news/89440-sony-patent-describes-ai-plays-games-you.html

 

[QuantumPhysics]

I would imagine an AI should be capable of 100% flawless gameplay and 100% perfect speedruns.

This is how Skynet begins.

 

[Dimitriid]

I knew console players needed auto-aim to play FPS games with a controller but I didn't know they needed such advanced auto aim!

 

[Raytrace3D]

Sweet. My twitch channel will well maintained when I'm away. lol

 

[Achaios]

Νοthing new.

WoW players are already familiar with WoW bots.

Sounds like a somewhat more evolved version of a WoW bot.

 

[Ludak021]

Make an CEO AI, so it can get rid of the CEO and run Sony.

 

[Dimitriid]

Νοthing new.

WoW players are already familiar with WoW bots.

Sounds like a somewhat more evolved version of a WoW bot.

Interesting example: I believe it goes back even further to at the very least Ultima Online for the usage of bots: Almost since we created online games where we can't modify or use cheats we immediately created ways to make the leveling and resource gathering easier or automated.

Now we're creating AI to possibly do this even for games *without* the massive-multiplayer online element.

Is almost as we're designing game mechanics very poorly and most people don't actually enjoy them but insist we retain them in the name of some sort of petty rite of passage for players (And for companies, of course to sell micro-transactions to skip it)

If we could I don't know: make interesting content instead of just people resenting having to gamble with a random number generator and trying to work around it's artificial limitations, maybe we wouldn't need AI to play games on it's own people were basically exploited to the point of madness during "crunch" to develop in the first place.

This must make developers truly feel like Sisyphus.

 

[erickmendes]

"- Alexa, fix my life."

 

[pelopidas]

How about a bot that does my work for me and I will play my games myself...