What Nvidia’s AI NPC demo could mean for game development

Logistical problems and early community doubt

The reaction to the demo has been about as mixed as you’d expect from the gaming community.

While many are lauding the technical advancements being made and the potential for unbridled immersion, others state that the concept is either too ambitious to work well or is straight up BS on Nvidia’s part. After all, outside of the pre-recorded footage, we’ve no way of verifying the technology or trying it out.

Whatever side of the fence you’re on, it is difficult to see beyond some of the glaring logistical problems that could instantly thwart such an undertaking.

Looking beyond the robotic performance of the NPC – which will undoubtedly improve as AI learns to better mimic human speech – the player deliberately asked basic, inane questions typical of any create-your-own protagonist beginning a busywork side-mission.

Exactly how well Jin would hold up when faced with a 12-year-old who’s just rage quit from FIFA remains to be seen. More to the point, was the demo intended purely to motivate investors?

Given the huge inventory of top-of-the-range hardware that was used purely to showcase the demo in such an enclosed area, there’s also the question of exactly how much processing power would be needed to equip even a handful of NPCs with these capabilities in a full-scale game.

Many developers currently refrain from rendering working mirrors in their games to optimise performance, frame-rate, and graphical fidelity. Throwing the entire framework of AI NPCs into the mix would almost certainly discount the maximum power capabilities of next gen consoles as well as the vast majority of PCs.

Maybe developers won’t embrace the ACE toolkit in the way the demo attempts, but major titles including S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 Heart of Chernobyl, and Fort Solis are already using Nvidia’s ‘Audio2Face’ application to try and match the facial animations of characters more accurately to their actor’s speech.

What impact could this have for developers?

Assuming, against the odds, Nvidia finds a way of making ACE desirable for game studios – perhaps through a cloud-based infrastructure to compensate for processing power – what could the wide-scale introduction of AI mean for those working in the industry?

A common belief is that robots will inevitably overthrow specialist digital job roles. In any case, ACE reaching a convincing enough standard would put voice actors, animators, and story writers at risk straight away. In-fact, Ubisoft is already using an AI language tool called Ghostwriter.

Those keen to unreservedly embrace AI in the name of progress will be thrilled by the prospect of several massive upsides. The boon to smaller studios is markedly huge when you think about it.

Ambitious titles only achievable now with a huge team of specialist developers will realistically be possible with a just a fraction of the manpower. AI is already able to contribute everything from concept art and scripts, to 3D animation and dynamic lighting.

Are AI NPCs really next on the list? We’ll find out soon enough.