Sony AI and Polyphony Digital, creators of Gran Turismo, have been collaborating over the past year to create a new artificial intelligence agent capable of racing at a professional level. At the time, a publication in Nature detailed the experiment, showing how the AI not only learned tactics, strategy, and even racing etiquette, but was also able to drive very fast, similar to previous AIs.
GT Sophy, as the artificial intelligence was called, wasn’t quite ready for prime time. For example, it would often overtake its competitors as quickly as possible on a straight, only to be overtaken by them in the next few corners. Additionally, GT Sophy actively tracked players facing time penalties, while humans typically waited for the penalized vehicle to slow down before passing it.
Gran Turismo 7 introduces near-superior artificial intelligence
Previously we published some articles related to Gran Turismo. You can check them out for more information.
But Sony AI and Polyphony Digital have been hard at work on GT Sophy over the following year, and tomorrow (February 21) GT Sophy will be rolling out as part of version 1.29 for Gran Turismo 7, albeit for a short time. Until the end of March, the GT Sophy Race Together option will allow users to pit their skills against Sophy in a series of races of increasing difficulty. You and Sophy can compete in a one-on-one battle in similar cars so you can compare times and learn from your mistakes.
“This evolution in AI is a symbolic moment in Gran Turismo’s 25-year history and is just as important as the evolution of car physics simulation, which is the heart and core of a racing game,” said President Kazunori Yamauchi of Polyphony Digital.
“Unlike traditional built-in AI, GT Sophy races with continuity in a variety of situations, allowing users to enjoy the excitement of close combat as if playing against a professional racer. This is also an important development from the point of view of racing game history. We will continue to develop GT Sophy to achieve our concept of “Race Together,” where we envision giving players a fun opponent to compete against and learn from,” said Yamauchi, as reported by Arstechnica.com reported.
While this iteration of Sophy will only be around for a short time, we won’t be completely cut off from the AI after this game. Sony has stated that it will use user feedback from this first release to tweak its artificial intelligence in subsequent releases.
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