The ever-reaching influence of AI over gaming seems set to expand further, if a new patent from Sony is an indication. The patent documents filed are for what the company refers to as “AI Ghost,” an in-game function that will demonstrate how to further progress should you find yourself stuck for whatever reason. Alternatively, it will allow AI to fully take over your game to simply progress you past that point.
According to what Sony has outlined, AI will be trained on gameplay videos posted on both YouTube and Twitch, as well as looking at information via the PlayStation Network. This will allow players to call upon an AI that can simply walk them past trouble points, which, in fairness, was something I could have used playing the latest Alone In The Dark. The idea is to compare what the player is doing versus what other players have done online, hoping that the AI can match that success to the player’s benefit. I say hoping because, as we all know, AI is still not at a point where we can expect consistently positive results.
Sony claimed in their patent that this newer generation of AI assistance will be superior to examples that have come before, one of which is unnamed but is similar to something Nintendo has used. The patent reads:
Some solutions have included the use of a character that a user can follow. However, the character is usually a graphic image or outlined image of a prior player that played the game and the user must follow the character watching the moves that occurred (including moves and interaction that is not relevant to the user’s current gameplay scenarios).
This is not, however, very useful for real-time assistance to a player that is encountering some difficulty with a specific scenario of gameplay or along the player’s specific gameplay path. This is because the character does not know specifically what the player is playing or the context of the user’s gameplay.
Further, the character is typically only performing actions of one prior player. Further yet, the character is only presented for general game scenarios that relate to the game, not in relation to the context of the player’s current gameplay.
What Sony is suggesting is that this AI System will be able to track players on a much deeper, microscopic level, being able to determine what directions the player needs based on a multitude of factors, such as the orientation of the character on screen, the camera, and the environment.
Of course, Sony has filed a multitude of patents in the past that have never materialized in the past, one such that comes to mind was meant for DualSense controllers to reflect the temperature in games, which was filed in 2020. I’m sure this was a feature they actively explored at the time, but there are some obviously glaring issues with this concept. AI Assistance has more applications, but there are some challenges to achieving this as well.
Currently, help and tips are provided on the system for players who have PlayStation Plus, with players able to access them from the guide menu while playing. These are on a case-by-case basis, as not all developers choose to produce these for their games, and it requires a developer to manually create them, which might add to the appeal of what Sony hopes to offer.
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