As promised, Sony AI and Polyphony Digital have unveiled their joint projects regarding artificial intelligence.
The latter will obviously be released by a certain Gran Turismo 7. We will explain to you.
A worthy AI for Gran Turismo 7?
Only a few days ago, we approached the future Gran Turismo 7 on the occasion of a dedicated State of Play, and a guided tour provided by the creator of the series Kazunori Yamauchi. A few hours ago, Sony AI, in collaboration with Polyphony Digital Inc. (PDI) and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE), offered the "Sony AI x Polyphony Digital Race Together" event. The latter promised the arrival of “a great advance in the artificial intelligence of video games”.
Founded in April 2020, Sony IA aims to improve artificial intelligence for various fields, including video games. For many months, Sony IA engineers have been working in close collaboration with the Polyphony Digital teams, in order to infuse the game with an AI capable of adapting to the best players in the world. A project called Gran Turismo Sophy.
Gran Turismo Sophy is an autonomous AI agent trained using a new deep reinforcement learning platform developed in collaboration by Sony AI, PDI and SIE. Each group combined expertise in fundamental AI research and development, a hyper-realistic racing simulator, and infrastructure for large-scale AI training.
The objective is simple: to offer an AI capable of beating any virtual driver… and in the process becoming the best Gran Turismo driver of all time. For this, Sony AI has analyzed a lot of data, virtual and real, to create "agents" able to achieve these "superhuman performances", and offer new gaming experiences to players. A more realistic AI, more aggressive too, but don't forget the codes of good conduct.
The AI ​​developed allows Sophy in particular to understand automotive dynamics, analyze the best trajectories, but also to make decisions to adapt to racing situations. "GT Sophy has demonstrated mastery of tactics such as slipstream overtaking, crossover overtaking and even some defensive maneuvers such as blocking," says Sony IA. Obviously, GT Sophy also promises to be fair play, avoiding collisions as much as possible and respecting the trajectories of opponents.
Sony AI tested the capabilities of GT Sophy by racing the program against four of the world's best Gran Turismo drivers at the two Race Together 2021 Challenge events on July 2, 2021 and October 21, 2021. Using lessons learned from the first race for Improving it, GT Sophy beat the best human GT drivers in both time trials and in an FIA-certified Gran Turismo Championships format race at the second event in October.
"Gran Turismo Sophy marks a milestone in the development of AI whose goal is not simply to outperform human players, but also to provide them with a challenging opponent capable of accelerating and passing techniques and gamers' creativity into a higher gear," said Hiroaki Kitano, CEO of Sony AI. "As well as helping to advance the gaming community, we believe this advancement holds great promise for areas such as autonomous racing, self-driving, high-speed robotics, and control."
Note however that during the presentation, Kazunori Yamauchi announced that this AI Gran Turismo Sophy will be integrated later into the game Gran Turismo 7, via a future update. This revolutionary AI will therefore not be available when the game is launched. A demonstration of this "revolutionary" AI was subsequently offered during the official presentation, but on Gran Turismo Sport.
The opportunity to observe very realistic reactions from Sophy, to try to overtake (properly) an opponent or on the contrary to defend his position. We were also able to see the AI ​​make a mistake, by putting too much gas on exiting the turn, but also observe how Sophy takes pleasure in using the entire width of the track, but also in making maximum use of the suction of the car in front. A very tight race, during which it was impossible to differentiate the human players from the cars controlled by Sophy.
Gran Turismo 7 is expected on March 4 on PS5 and PS4, and we obviously look forward to putting this new "Sophy" AI to the test.
