Hiya folks,
Most of us know by now the growing importance of AI/artificial intelligence tool and machine learning in the gaming industry. While AI has mostly been used outside of games (coding/script or screen writing),things might change a bit in the future.
Since the rise and popularity of the latest AI tools, particularly used in generating new images and screenshots, upscaling, and other fields, many were wondering whether game developers would take advantage of them. And, it appears that one of the first ones that will do just that will be Ubisoft. According to UBISOFT, an “AI tool” is currently helping its developers write dialogue for some of its games.
The AI tool will be used in creating the first draft of its “NPC barks”. This AI tool, called Ubisoft Ghostwriter, was created by Ubisoft La Forge.
Ubisoft showed off some details about its new narrative generative AI tool at GDC 2023. This tool is described as:
“Introducing Ubisoft Ghostwriter, an AI tool developed in-house that aims to support our scriptwriters by generating the first draft of our NPC barks - the phrases or sounds made by NPCs when players interact with the game world. This tool was created hand-in-hand with scriptwriters to create more realistic NPC interactions by generating variations on a piece of dialogue See how our teams will use AI to handle repetitive tasks, and free up time to work on other core game elements.”
It claims to have been developed to assist its screenwriters. The tool will be used for script and dialogue writing. But this would make some of the dialogues lack real emotion and sound “lifeless” according to me.
This move has been met with some controversy and backlash from journalists/writers and authors alike, due to the limitation and drawbacks of using AI in general, at least for scriptwriting.
There seems to be a great skepticism surrounding this idea and move by Ubisoft. Sony’s Santa Monica writer Alanah Pearce tweeted, “As a writer, having to edit scenarios/dialogues generated by AI takes a lot more time than just writing my own ad-hoc lines. I prefer that AAA studios use the budget they spend on making tools like this to hire more writers.”
Also, the term coined by UBI is inaccurate, since this is more of a “Machine Learning” than actual AI, IMO. There is a good reason why "Machine Learning is NOT Artificial Intelligence" as outlined in this article, which is worth giving a read, if you have spare time.
Why Machine Learning is not Artificial Intelligence? | by AlfonsoRReyes | Medium
Ubisoft says that at least for now, only NPCs will use this tool in their dialogue. Ghostwriter will not create a dialogue from scratch and will work with the scriptwriters to create more realistic NPC interactions by producing variations on a piece of dialogue, according to Ubisoft. It is understood from these statements of Ubisoft that the tool developed is not actually an “artificial intelligence” and is just a “deep learning” tool.
The video description says: “Introducing Ubisoft Ghostwriter, an AI tool developed in-house that aims to support our scriptwriters by generating the first draft of our NPC barks – the phrases or sounds made by NPCs when players interact with the game world.”
According to UBISOFT's blog:
“Ghostwriter isn't replacing the video game writer, but instead, alleviating one of the video game writer's most laborious tasks: writing barks. Ghostwriter effectively generates first drafts of barks - phrases or sounds made by NPCs during a triggered event - which gives scriptwriters more time to polish the narrative elsewhere. Ben Swanson, R&D Scientist at La Forge Montreal, is the creator of Ghostwriter, and remembers the early seeds of it ahead of his presentation of the tech at GDC this year”.
It remains to be seen how effective the tool would be in the future. From the looks of it, the AI revolution is about to begin. And, similar to the NFTs, Ubisoft wants to be sitting in the front seat. Now whether or not this will be a good thing is anyone’s guess!
Here are more details on Ubisoft's Ghostwriter AI tool from GDC 2023 (gamedeveloper.com)
View: https://youtu.be/XxQoN3PFiKA
Most of us know by now the growing importance of AI/artificial intelligence tool and machine learning in the gaming industry. While AI has mostly been used outside of games (coding/script or screen writing),things might change a bit in the future.
Since the rise and popularity of the latest AI tools, particularly used in generating new images and screenshots, upscaling, and other fields, many were wondering whether game developers would take advantage of them. And, it appears that one of the first ones that will do just that will be Ubisoft. According to UBISOFT, an “AI tool” is currently helping its developers write dialogue for some of its games.
The AI tool will be used in creating the first draft of its “NPC barks”. This AI tool, called Ubisoft Ghostwriter, was created by Ubisoft La Forge.
Ubisoft showed off some details about its new narrative generative AI tool at GDC 2023. This tool is described as:
“Introducing Ubisoft Ghostwriter, an AI tool developed in-house that aims to support our scriptwriters by generating the first draft of our NPC barks - the phrases or sounds made by NPCs when players interact with the game world. This tool was created hand-in-hand with scriptwriters to create more realistic NPC interactions by generating variations on a piece of dialogue See how our teams will use AI to handle repetitive tasks, and free up time to work on other core game elements.”
It claims to have been developed to assist its screenwriters. The tool will be used for script and dialogue writing. But this would make some of the dialogues lack real emotion and sound “lifeless” according to me.
This move has been met with some controversy and backlash from journalists/writers and authors alike, due to the limitation and drawbacks of using AI in general, at least for scriptwriting.
There seems to be a great skepticism surrounding this idea and move by Ubisoft. Sony’s Santa Monica writer Alanah Pearce tweeted, “As a writer, having to edit scenarios/dialogues generated by AI takes a lot more time than just writing my own ad-hoc lines. I prefer that AAA studios use the budget they spend on making tools like this to hire more writers.”
Also, the term coined by UBI is inaccurate, since this is more of a “Machine Learning” than actual AI, IMO. There is a good reason why "Machine Learning is NOT Artificial Intelligence" as outlined in this article, which is worth giving a read, if you have spare time.
Why Machine Learning is not Artificial Intelligence? | by AlfonsoRReyes | Medium
Ubisoft says that at least for now, only NPCs will use this tool in their dialogue. Ghostwriter will not create a dialogue from scratch and will work with the scriptwriters to create more realistic NPC interactions by producing variations on a piece of dialogue, according to Ubisoft. It is understood from these statements of Ubisoft that the tool developed is not actually an “artificial intelligence” and is just a “deep learning” tool.
The video description says: “Introducing Ubisoft Ghostwriter, an AI tool developed in-house that aims to support our scriptwriters by generating the first draft of our NPC barks – the phrases or sounds made by NPCs when players interact with the game world.”
According to UBISOFT's blog:
“Ghostwriter isn't replacing the video game writer, but instead, alleviating one of the video game writer's most laborious tasks: writing barks. Ghostwriter effectively generates first drafts of barks - phrases or sounds made by NPCs during a triggered event - which gives scriptwriters more time to polish the narrative elsewhere. Ben Swanson, R&D Scientist at La Forge Montreal, is the creator of Ghostwriter, and remembers the early seeds of it ahead of his presentation of the tech at GDC this year”.
It remains to be seen how effective the tool would be in the future. From the looks of it, the AI revolution is about to begin. And, similar to the NFTs, Ubisoft wants to be sitting in the front seat. Now whether or not this will be a good thing is anyone’s guess!
Here are more details on Ubisoft's Ghostwriter AI tool from GDC 2023 (gamedeveloper.com)
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