Ubisoft Develops Its Own AI Model. Neo NPC Aims to Go Far Beyond Capabilities of Average Chatbot
Ubisoft shared new info about the AI tool that generates dialogues for NPCs. Players don't hide their distaste.
A year ago, we informed about a new project by Ubisoft, which announced work on an AI tool that generates dialogues for NPCs. Yesterday, an article was published on the studio's official website, from which we learned more details about it.
Use of AI
The small team at Ubisoft's Paris branch is developing the NEO NPC project using Nvidia's Audio2Face application and Inworld's LLM. The objective is to create independent characters in games with dialogue generated by artificial intelligence, whose capabilities exceed those of the chatbots we currently know.
It's worth noting that the screenwriter is still the one behind the creation of the characters -- in this case, Virginia Mosser. It influences the history and personality of the NPC, and then ensures that it stays true to its vision by modifying the language model parameters appropriately.
It is really important to us that it behaves like the character Virginie created. So, while we're talking to it, we ask ourselves: 'is this Lisa? Would Lisa say this?' and if the answer is no, we need to go back and find out what happened within the model to make it stray from the vision Virginie had -- Mélanie Lopez Malet, data analyst.
In NEO NPC, characters are supposed to be assigned a "soul," but their role is limited only to what fits within the framework of the plot. So, these won't be toys with which you can have conversations on any topic like with popular AI chatbots.
The tool is designed to be helpful for making both smaller titles and larger AAA games. The project is currently in the early stages of production, and it will be a while before it is implemented in games.
Players' reactions
Artificial intelligence is still controversial. And It's no different in this case. We can read many critical comments under Ubisoft's post on X.
So your games will be even more soulless? I thought that's impossible.
Nobody wants this except obsessive tech bros. How about paying writers to do something interesting and on-theme?
Somehow Ubisoft found a way to make their games even WORSE.
This sounds exciting in theory but in reality will be about as interesting as procedurally generated quests and dungeons.
As you can see, players aren't overly positive about the new technology. It's hard to blame them, as products generated by AI are usually associated with reproduction and mediocrity, and in games we usually look for unique experiences. So it seems that Ubisoft will really have to work hard to convince players of their idea.
