Is this the future of video games?
AI characters
A junior designer specifically took advantage of the wonders of ChatGPT to give non-player characters (NPCs) in the VR version of the popular 2011 video game Skyrim the ability to instantly create new dialogue and actually have a conversation with a player, computer games reports.
While this particular implementation leaves something to be desired — the synthesized voices are far from convincing — it’s a glimpse into an exciting future in which we can have expansive conversations with computer-controlled characters while immersing ourselves inside virtual worlds.
Well done
The modder, who goes by Art From The Machine, has taken it upon himself to dramatically expand the limited dialogue options for Skyrim NPCs using OpenAI’s large language model.
By connecting a text-to-speech modifier called xVASynth and OpenAI Whisper’s speech-to-text model, the modifier was able to talk to in-game characters by simply speaking into their microphone, as shown in a YouTube video.
“It appears to be a well-made iron sword with a soul gem embedded in the hilt,” NPC Ulfberth War-Bear told the player when the mod asked him to describe a sword. “The magic on it allows the wizard to capture the souls of his enemies.”
Ulfberth was also able to tell when a particular store in the fictional town of Whiterun was open and calculate when it would close.
Just getting started
NPCs were even able to remember past events and conversations the player had already had with them.
“I have a basic mnemonic system set up where I have ChatGPT summarize the conversation on exit to help condense it for future prompts,” Art From The Machine explained in a Reddit post.
They are only scratching the surface.
“There are a lot of sophisticated memory manipulation tools out there though like Langchain that I hope to use in the future,” added the designer.
Art From The Machine still wants to improve the situation before making it available to the public.
In many ways, this is an exciting demonstration of how AI technologies can enhance video games in the future. As technology advances, it’s not a stretch to think that developers will start using intelligent chatbots to allow virtual characters to branch out from the often limited dialogue trees.
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