At least they really admit that they are using it.
It's the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) again. Ubisoft is a regular GDC and this year also showcased new technologies at the conference, attracting the attention of industry peers and gamers.
On March 21, Ubisoft unveiled for the first time a tool for writing character lines based on AI language models and machine learning technology. The tool, called "Ghostwriter," sounds like something that ran out of a game titled by military writer Tom Clancy, which roughly translates to "ghost writer" or "ghostwriter."
The "Ghostwriter" was developed independently by Ubisoft's R&D department "Ubisoft La Forge". It can generate lines and dialogue from NPCs in the game and use it as a first draft.
At GDC, Ubisoft researcher Ben Swanson explained the purpose and operation of "ghostwriters". He said that "ghostwriters" will not be used for cutscenes and core storylines (Lore) of the game, but only for NPC lines that have little to do with the main storyline. In our colloquial terms, those "water words".
The photos of the venue came from foreign media Game Developer
The main use of "ghostwriter" is to combine a basic line or semantic meaning of an NPC to generate at least two versions of a usable line, such as quickly converting "we can talk later" to "we can talk about it later".
Enter: "I used to be an adventurer like you..."
Output: "I went on an adventure until..."
If the user enters the motivation or emotion of an innocent passerby, the "ghostwriter" will also output the content corresponding to the context. In exchange for interaction between the player and a passerby, or between two passers-by, the user can enter the identity of the passerby and the topic of the conversation, and cram them into the "ghostwriter" to form a coherent dialogue.
Enter: Praying
Output: "I am praying for this city. I implore those good souls to protect us. ”
Humans have absolute control over the lines generated by the "ghostwriter". After the lines are generated, you can choose to keep or discard the generated line scheme, and freely modify the selected scheme until you are satisfied and then send it as a finished draft for dubbing. In this process, the feedback given by users on the lines can be further studied by the R&D team, which can help the "ghostwriter" model produce better results.
Three buttons: pass, modify, veto
Ubisoft emphasized in a note on its website that "ghostwriters" were created in consultation with the company's "team of narrative designers" and did not replace human writers, but only helped them reduce their workload so that they could devote their energy to less repetitive tasks as much as possible, such as polishing narratives elsewhere.
To phrase Swanson's wording, "ghostwriters" can "open up possibilities for a larger world filled with more conversation." Considering that Ubisoft's open world is indeed big enough, maybe their writing team will really appreciate the invention.
But in the context of widespread controversy over AI tools, people outside the company don't seem to trust Ubisoft's promises.
From comments on Ubisoft's official demo video to netizens on social media, there is a pessimistic attitude and deep hostility towards Ubisoft and its "ghostwriters". Most of the commentators worried that Ubisoft was abusing low-cost AI, robbing human screenwriters of their livelihoods and filling empty game worlds with mechanical dialogue.
"It definitely saves the writer of the script because most of them are looking for another job"
"What a wonderful way to make your game world mechanical and soulless"
"Today it is 'assisting', tomorrow it will be a substitute"
Comments from Reddit were the most offensive. One of the netizens even used another AI tool, ChatGPT, to generate an "Assassin's Creed" plot containing the keyword "ghostwriter" to show a satire on Ubisoft.
"Ubisoft's story already looks like it was written by AI, so I'm not surprised"
Alanah Pearce, a stake in the industry, also commented, "As a playwright, editing AI-generated scripts/dialogue sounds far more time-consuming than writing improvised lines myself. I would prefer that 3A studios hire more writers than using a budget to develop these tools. ”
Those voices of support, drowned out by criticism, point out that AI is part of an unstoppable future that, if applied properly, can be a useful tool. Some players also mentioned that a group of folk self-made mods for games are already trying to let chatbots take over the plot script.
Just a few days before Ubisoft announced its "ghostwriter", a mod for Ride & Slash 2 has just been officially launched. Called "Inworld AI", this mod uses a homemade chatbot server and text-to-speech function, and is designed to create a dynamic dialogue between each NPC in the game and the player, so that they can react more appropriately.
Source Youtube@Bloc
Compared with Ubisoft's AI tools, this mod is more powerful, interactive, and more in line with players' imagination of AI; It's completely free, with no business and ethical concerns about taking someone else's job, and the reviews are much more positive.
"You are making the dreams of a generation come true!"
"I want to see when a triple-A game company like Bethesda will also use this kind of AI..."
Although the public's rejection of AI cannot be alleviated in the short term, the advantages of AI streamlining workflow and saving costs objectively exist, and in the near future, it cannot be ruled out that large and small game manufacturers will use AI as a productivity tool at will.
Ubisoft's disclosure of its AI tools to help write lines may also be a means of showing sincerity. On the one hand, Ubisoft's self-developed language model is much safer than the public ChatGPT and other models, at least it will not fall into the problem of homogenization with industry games (its own games are a different matter), and it also avoids the copyright risk when the public model is withdrawn.
On the other hand, Ubisoft's early openness is more of a PR strategy. It is better to let people have psychological expectations than to hide and finally be exposed.