summary
- Sony’s PlayStation Division is developing an AI-equipped version of ALOY from the Horizon series.
- AI characters can talk to the player via audio prompts during gameplay.
- Sony is testing the technology for use in upcoming Horizon multiplayer games.
AI (Artifical Intelligence) appears to be a tool used by more and more video game companies, but Sony’s PlayStation Division appears to be taking part in the ranks.
One known PlayStation character is used as a prototype for the AI-powered version, and is nothing more than Aloy, the protagonist of Guerrilla Games’ Horizon Action series.
The AI-driven version of Aloy allows you to talk to players
This version is tilted to the internal video of Sony’s PlayStation Division, allowing AI-powered Aloy to actually start the action.
This video is narrated by Sharwin Raghoebardajal, director of software engineering at Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE).
What’s interesting here is how Raghoebardajal demos an AI-driven version of Aloy that allows you to talk to players through voice prompts while playing the game. The characters depicted in the demo show how Aloy responds to questions, and the model features accurate audio and facial movements.
The demo shows Aloy in the demo configuration and Horizon Forbidden West. Remember this is not the game’s DLC inbound, but rather the one that was made interal to showcase the technology.
The demo uses both GPT-4 and Llama 3 for Openai’s whispers and conversations for Speech-to-Text, and uses a way to determine what Aloy answers. It also uses Sony’s own emotional speech synthesis (EVS) system, which is used for speech production. The audio that faces animation is also equipped with Mockingbird, another of Sony’s own technology.
Raghoebardajal has confirmed that the demo is running on a PC, but Sony has tested some of the technology directly on the PS5 console with “small overhead”.
Perhaps this is something Sony will use in the Horizon multiplayer game currently under development? It’s certainly not something to say, but this is one neat technology, but that’s a bit unsettling too. So, what if I could talk directly to Aloy in the next Horizon game? It sounds good on paper, but it can also lead to many issues relating to privacy and more.
Not only does Sony use AI to further develop games, but AI is a good tool to use, but it still can’t replace human creativity. One case where AI isn’t working as intended? It’s this latest game on the PlayStation Store that uses AI clearly.
