- | 6:14 am
Sony built an AI that can beat you at video games, with honor
Its new Gran Turismo racing bot has bested world-class human esports drivers.
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First they came for chess, now they come for video games. In the 21st century, a legion of AI competitors could very well dominate every board, screen, and console played by humans. Famous machines like Deep Blue and Alpha Go have already conquered some of the worldās most complex strategy puzzles.
Next up, the PS5.
Japanese tech giant SonyĀ revealed WednesdayĀ that it has trained theĀ toughest-ever opponentĀ for the race-car simulatorĀ Gran Turismoāa champion that can beat top-class esports drivers at their own games. Forged on the battlegrounds of over 1,000 PlayStation 4 consoles, the AI racer-bot has grown smart enough to identify optimal course routes and can execute skilled tactical maneuvers to pass or block competitors, even in vehicular scrum. It does so with ruthless effectivenessāwhile still respecting the human etiquette of the game, Sony claims.
The companyĀ published researchĀ on its brainchildādubbed Gran Turismo SophyāinĀ Nature journal this week. The development process paired āstate-of-the-art, model-free, deep reinforcement learning algorithms with mixed-scenario training to learn an integrated control policy that combines exceptional speed with impressive tactics,ā it said. āIn addition, we construct a reward function that enables the agent to be competitive while adhering to racingās important, but under-specified, sportsmanship rules.ā
In a media-broadcast demonstration, Sophy bested four of the worldās topĀ Gran TurismoĀ drivers in head-to-head contests, proving the techās superiority to mere mortals. ButĀ Sophyās aspirationĀ was never to crush humanityās spirits or to leave it feeling defeated. On the contrary, it was meant to spark fresh excitement in esports, especially among elite players who felt they had no challenge left to answer.
āI feel frustrated, that never happened before battling with an AI,ā Tomoaki Yamanaka, one of the four racers,Ā said after the loss. āI drove like I would drive against a human. Thatās a really amazing thing.ā
In that sense, Sophy pushes the human limit; it can āaccelerate and elevate the playersā techniques and creativity to the next level,ā said Hiroaki Kitano, CEO of Sony AI, in a statement. The company has said itās exploring ways to integrate Sophy into future versions ofĀ Gran Turismo (the gameās seventh edition is set to launch in March).
Gran TurismoĀ now joins a long list of games in which AIs have beaten people, including shogi, Go,Ā Starcraft, classic Atari video games, and multiplayer seriesĀ Defense of the Ancients, for which the Microsoft-backed OpenAI created a fighter bot.
ButĀ Gran TurismoĀ has higher complexity than other console games, requiring players to balance the physics of friction and aerodynamics, all while making split-second judgment calls and reacting to shifting landscapes with light-speed reflex. And even beyond that, experts say Sophyās achievements stand out in its capacity to behave aggressively, yet still fairly, and to observe the gamersā code of conduct beyond just the letter of the lawāin other words, to embody the subtle nuances of human character.
While technically legal, Sony didnāt want Sophy to win by bullying other racers off the road. To make sure it wouldnāt, they trained its neural network by levying penalties for collisions with other drivers, for exampleāusing a trial-and-error process referred to as reinforcement learning.
āThe agent should be a friend, a comrade, a buddy to human beings, an agent that people can feel sympathy with,āĀ saidĀ Kazunori Yamauchi, the creator ofĀ Gran Turismo. āAlso, the agent can stimulate the emotion of people, so that the agent and human beings can mutually respect each other.ā