{"id":22,"date":"2021-10-08T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-08T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.sciencefocus.com\/?p=101375"},"modified":"2021-10-08T13:06:44","modified_gmt":"2021-10-08T11:06:44","slug":"free-guy-why-video-game-ai-will-always-be-stupid","status":"publish","type":"rss_feed","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcsciencefocus\/rss_feed\/free-guy-why-video-game-ai-will-always-be-stupid\/","title":{"rendered":"Free Guy: Why video game AI will always be stupid"},"content":{"rendered":"

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By Stephen Kelly\n \t\t<\/p>

Published: Friday, 08 October 2021 at 12:00 am<\/p>

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A non-player character, or NPC, is any character in a video game who is not directly controlled by you, the player. It\u2019s the zombie you shoot in the face in The Last of Us<\/em>. It\u2019s the innocent bystander you hit while speeding in Grand Theft Auto V<\/em>. It\u2019s the capitalist racoon who enslaves you into a lifetime of debt in Animal Crossing<\/em>.<\/p>\n

They are often characterised by a lack of agency and depth: a result of them being restricted by a set of pre-determined choices and algorithms. But artificial intelligence<\/a> is getting smarter \u2013 and NPCs are too.<\/p>\n

New movie Free Guy<\/em> takes this to its most extreme conclusion, positing a scenario in which an NPC (played by Ryan Reynolds) gains self-awareness in a huge Grand Theft Auto<\/em>-style video game. No longer is he a puppet with a set of stock phrases, but he can think, feel and interact. Surely this is the future of gaming?<\/p>\n

\u201cThe chances of an NPC becoming self-aware are virtually zero,\u201d says Dr Edward Powley<\/a>, associate professor of artificial intelligence in Falmouth University\u2019s Games Academy. \u201cCreativity, consciousness, self-awareness \u2013 we might be able to create the illusion of some of these, but achieving them in any meaningful way is still decades away, partly because our understanding of how the human brain does these things is still very limited.\u201d<\/p>\n

But that doesn\u2019t mean that game developers are not experimenting with AI. In 2020, game developer Ubisoft released Watch Dogs: Legion<\/em>, which populated its dystopian recreation of London with some of the most dynamic and idiosyncratic NPCs ever seen.<\/p>\n

To achieve this, they built Census, a complex system that generates biographies, relationships and narratives for the city\u2019s NPCs population. Save a man from police brutality one day, and he and his brother may become your allies the next\u2026 or your enemies, if you accidentally injure their best friend in a firefight.<\/p>\n

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Ryan Reynolds and Lil Rel Howery as NPCs in Free Guy<\/em> \u00a9 20th Century Fox<\/span><\/figcaption><\/div>\n

In terms of the future, the tech that Powley is most interested in is natural language processing. \u201cThis is behind systems such as Alexa and Siri, which allows you to interact with a computer system using plain English.\u201d The potential for video games is reactive NPCs who can hold a real-time conversation with the player as they type sentences or speak into a microphone.<\/p>\n

The most cutting-edge example so far is 2005 video game Fa\u00e7ade<\/em>, in which the player has to navigate a cocktail party without saying the wrong thing and being thrown out. \u201cThe technology needs to advance further to be truly feasible in games,\u201d says Powley.<\/p>\n

There is a risk that such technology could compromise authorial control. This is Powley\u2019s concern with methods such as machine learning, which allow AI to analyse data, interpret it, and make its own decisions.<\/p>\n

This could lead to NPCs who behave with more freedom and flexibility. But leaving aside the fact that it would require a lot of time and computational power, there\u2019s also the question of whether \u2018better\u2019 NPCs would make for better video games.<\/p>\n

\u201cVideo games are all about telling a story or giving the player an experience, and NPCs being too unpredictable can break that,\u201d says Powley. \u201cA lot of what we do when we play games is about figuring out systems, and NPCs that are too unpredictable are too difficult to figure out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Verdict:\u00a0<\/strong>While intriguing, the AI underlining Free Guy<\/em> is neither possible nor desirable.<\/p>\n

About our expert, Dr Edward Powley<\/h4>\n

Edward is an associate professor in the Games Academy at Falmouth University. His research focuses on artificial intelligence in video games, particularly on developing general-purpose AI methods which can play a wide variety of games. He is also an independent video game developer.<\/p>\n

Read more from\u00a0Popcorn Science<\/em>:<\/strong><\/p>\n