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Gran Turismo 7 developer Polyphony Digital has unleashed a new artificial intelligence called Sophy on the game in collaboration with Sony AI.
Gran Turismo 7‘s Sophy AI is designed to give even the most prolific racers their money’s worth. Sophy has been trained to learn from the PS5 racing sim’s playerbase to create an AI agent that feels like you’re racing against real players (thanks, Venture Beat (opens in new tab)).
Sophy is now available to race against in Gran Turismo 7, albeit in a limited capacity. Players must access the new ‘Race Together’ mode from the main menu, and you’re currently limited to just a handful of tracks of varying difficulty.
The mode is also only available for a limited time, from now until the end of March. However, Polyphony has confirmed that it will use feedback from this session to improve Sophy and keep multiple trials in play throughout the year.
“Previous AI, which has been mostly the same for the last 20 years, tries to follow a line and a certain trajectory. So it tries to reach certain speeds at certain points,” says Sophy project leader Peter Wurman. “And it’s very predictable. And it’s nowhere near fast enough for really good (human) drivers.”
There is much truth in Wurman’s words. The best racing games usually scale AI based on difficulty. But in the end, the best players of any given racing game will know the AI inside out. That makes them quite manageable even at the hardest level, and knowing different quirks to exploit can make racing against more standard AI even easier.
The future of racing game AI?
Sophy is clearly a very ambitious project, and using a neural network-trained AI is certainly something new in racing games. The closest I can think of is Forza Motorsport‘s Drivatar system, which does its best to adapt to the racing behavior of the players they are based on.
If Sophy works as intended, it could be quite revolutionary for the way future racing games design their computer-controlled drivers. As Wurman hints, an AI can only do so much with predefined behaviors and limits.
With Sophy, the AI has the ability to modify human-like behavior. That could be taking risks, such as braking later than usual before a corner, or determining the optimal time to enter the pit lane for a tire change.
Though I’m concerned that some bad habits might seep into Sophy’s AI as well. GT7’s online Sport mode, despite the game’s pleas for sportsmanship, is full of hyper-aggressive players looking to put other players at a disadvantage while dodging penalties. This often works in favor of the aggressor.
Time will tell if Sophy develops into Gran Turismo 7’s model pro driver, or a Wacky Races-esque disaster on wheels. But either way, I think it’s an interesting and productive use of AI technology that could give GT7’s single-player modes that much-needed degree of unpredictability.
