Gran Turismo Sophy: Sony AI x Polyphony Digital

[Yard_Sale]

Interesting overlay. Blue AI makes a great move realizing the two humans are holding the inside, but that's going to affect their line, so they make the under pass. Common thing seen in motorsport. 👍

The red AI though, looks like it slows down enough & cuts the corner quite a bit to make the pass work. Not going to say it isn't realistic, but that could be a bit frustrating to race an AI smart enough to teeter track limits to make maneuvers.

Watching the AI abuse the track limits was one of the most impressive things I found. It’s what we do in online races anyways

 

[Magog]

Interesting overlay. Blue AI makes a great move realizing the two humans are holding the inside, but that's going to affect their line, so they make the under pass. Common thing seen in motorsport. 👍

The red AI though, looks like it slows down enough & cuts the corner quite a bit to make the pass work. Not going to say it isn't realistic, but that could be a bit frustrating to race an AI smart enough to teeter track limits to make maneuvers.

It must have been within the limits as the AI is subject to the same penalties as the human drivers. You can see in Sport one of the ways they slow the AI down to make passing it easier is that the AI steers well clear of the curbs most of the time.

 

[mokalovesoulmat]

First I watched the very short video announcement: meh, you making Drivatar just now?

Second I watched the long video: This gonna be great.

 

[O604]

I will have the chance to speak with Kazunori Yamauchi and the Sony AI team about Gran Turismo Sophy in the coming days — let me know if you guys have any specific questions about Sophy that you'd like answered. 👍

Aside from Sophy, are there any changes AI in other areas like matchmaking? SR assessment? Track limit penalties?

 

[Nicxk]

I was already excited for Gran Turismo 7 but this just ratchets it up to a whole new level. Okay it won’t be available at launch which is a shame… but it’s something else to look forward to down the line.

 

[Auditore]

I will have the chance to speak with Kazunori Yamauchi and the Sony AI team about Gran Turismo Sophy in the coming days — let me know if you guys have any specific questions about Sophy that you'd like answered. 👍

How did B Spec Bob react to Sophy? 😂
And does PD think of using Sophy as a virtual steward for the penalty system

 

[Samcastor]

This thing is fast due to 100% knowledge of grip levels and track limits with inhuman possibility of throttle and steering inputs. Way too AIish to feel natural or close to any human in my opinion. But we will see the released version in the future. But in the Gallo video driving outside the curbs on the grass just isn't fair. And only possible with informations humans don't get from the game btw having to speed 1000s of laps and making stupid moves outside of the track.

You are incorrect. They specifically built a model-free deep reinforcement algorithm. So, it knows nothing about grip levels. Obviously it has to know the track limits to drive just like a human has to see the track to drive on it. They also specifically made it not be able to brake harder than humans but it is more precise. Sophy also interacts with the game at only 10Hz which from the work they cite means it does not have an advantage over human athletes in terms of perception.

 

[Magog]

You are incorrect. They specifically built a model-free deep reinforcement algorithm. So, it knows nothing about grip levels. Obviously it has to know the track limits to drive just like a human has to see the track to drive on it. They also specifically made it not be able to brake harder than humans but it is more precise. Sophy also interacts with the game at only 10Hz which from the work they cite means it does not have an advantage over human athletes in terms of perception.

And being only 10Hz should also mean its easier to implement on console hardware.

 

[Yard_Sale]

I wonder if PD is going to implement a “race weekend” mode. Similar to PC2. There you have practice and qualifying, and even “throughout the day”, you see the AI drivers making adjustments to their car and finding time through tuning.

It’s actually a blast!

 

[Samcastor]

Aside from Sophy, are there any changes AI in other areas like matchmaking? SR assessment? Track limit penalties?

From the paper:
For the final races, we opted for a conservative
approach that penalized the agent for any collision in which it was
involved (regardless of fault), with some extra penalties if the collision
was likely considered unacceptable. Figure 2a–h isolates the effects of
collision penalties and other key design choices made during this project.

They talk about having a blame assignment system but apparently the human test drivers and stewards thought the policies were too aggressive. So, they have thought about some sort of blame assignment system in races and penalties.

 

[evldave333]

Agreed, which makes adapting ability and adding human falability all the more tricky.

I wonder if it is tricky though? It might not necessarily mean programming more complexity. Perhaps lowering refresh rates or adding an entropy into the machine learning...

 

[kjeldsen]

I will have the chance to speak with Kazunori Yamauchi and the Sony AI team about Gran Turismo Sophy in the coming days — let me know if you guys have any specific questions about Sophy that you'd like answered. 👍

I take for granted you will ask all the questions i can come up with, but just to be sure.

Considering the huge divide in power between PS4 and PS5 is Sophy going to be a PS5 exclusive and if it does will this mean that Sophy will have its own corner in GT7 on the PS5 like a special set of challenges.

Is Sophy going to be a part of custom races so that you can create races with AIs with different personalities.
Can Sophy be used to fill up online lobbies if the host has enough bandwidth?

24 hour races with driver swaps?

 

[Jump_Ace]

“Ultimately, we want to be able to provide joy and fun as Sophy races with people,” Yamauchi-san explained. “The objective is not to just beat human beings, but to create a friend, a comrade, or a buddy. We want players to learn together and grow together with Sophy. […] We want to create something that has a positive effect on society, that promotes sympathy, kindness, and is creative and ethical.”

This is why I admire Kaz so much. His vision and creativity are always with the best intentions (yes, GT has shortcomings, obviously). I'm hoping Sophy will be a trainer as much as a competitor. Fingers Crossed!


Jerome

 

[Magog]

This is why I admire Kaz so much. His vision and creativity are always with the best intentions (yes, GT has shortcomings, obviously). I'm hoping Sophy will be a trainer as much as a competitor. Fingers Crossed!


Jerome

If they manage to implement any version of this GT7 is going to make headlines around the world and be seen as the herald of a new era in gaming. Long live Kaz!

 

[GTalaune]

I wonder if PD is going to implement a “race weekend” mode. Similar to PC2. There you have practice and qualifying, and even “throughout the day”, you see the AI drivers making adjustments to their car and finding time through tuning.

It’s actually a blast!

Yeah don't ask too much. Grid starts with non ajustable parameters + Sophy is the max PD will give us

 

[Nicxk]

I will have the chance to speak with Kazunori Yamauchi and the Sony AI team about Gran Turismo Sophy in the coming days — let me know if you guys have any specific questions about Sophy that you'd like answered. 👍

Will this feature be implemented in a way that allows the campaign mode to be (re)played with a custom AI difficulty?

 

[TrevorPhilips]

 

[Jump_Ace]

@Jordan will Sophy be equal parts trainer and competitor? If so, how can we expect Sophy to teach us to become faster, safer drivers?


Jerome

 

[danimac]

If this AI gets implemented into GT7 that would be cool. If this AI is also as fast or faster than the Drivers in the GTC I’m in trouble lol. Hopefully if they get implemented they are more aware and give you a serious battle and don’t feel robotic and programmed to play follow the leader. Also hope there’s various difficulty settings to choose from this. Numbers or being able to scale the difficulty would be good. As of now all we get is three options.

 

[praiano63]

Very good AI. I'm impressed . Just need polyphony to simulate the lost of grip when 2 tires are dirty , just as they do with 4 dirt tires.

 

[Scaff]

I wonder if it is tricky though? It might not necessarily mean programming more complexity. Perhaps lowering refresh rates or adding an entropy into the machine learning...

It's going to need something like that, my view is that It's simple in theory, most likely difficult in practice.

Certainly the ML based racing AI's we have as comparison have not yet pulled it off successfully, and one of those has a serious amount of AI experience behind it.

 

[s0cks]

Considering in the video they said that it needed cloud computing power with parallel PS systems I can't see how this can run on PS4 or PS5. I would have to imagine that the AI will learn the track, and once learned this will be burned into a patch (i.e. it won't continue learning on your own PS). What it will need to do on the fly though is react to other drivers.

As for people moaning about this ruining the campaign - I would say it's highly unlikely it'll be put in the campaign mode. That mode would have been tweaked for the current AI in GT7. And if it's the same old, chase the rabbit, style campaign then a super fast, human-like, AI is not going to be appropriate. I would imagine this would be saved for challenges/custom races where you want a good close race, and winning is not that important. Caveat is if they can tweak the speed of the AI, then they could potentially add it to the campaign without making it faster than the old AI - but instead just giving you a more enjoyable race because they react to your driving better.

 

[Scaff]

Considering in the video they said that it needed cloud computing power with parallel PS systems I can't see how this can run on PS4 or PS5. I would have to imagine that the AI will learn the track, and once learned this will be burned into a patch (i.e. it won't continue learning on your own PS). What it will need to do on the fly though is react to other drivers.

As for people moaning about this ruining the campaign - I would say it's highly unlikely it'll be put in the campaign mode. That mode would have been tweaked for the current AI in GT7. And if it's the same old, chase the rabbit, style campaign then a super fast, human-like, AI is not going to be appropriate. I would imagine this would be saved for challenges/custom races where you want a good close race, and winning is not that important. Caveat is if they can tweak the speed of the AI, then they could potentially add it to the campaign without making it faster than the old AI - but instead just giving you a more enjoyable race because they react to your driving better.

As GTS and GT7 both need an online connection to be able to do just about anything, utilising cloud based computing to assist it is perfectly possible.

One of the current ML based AI's does exactly that.

 

[snc]

I will have the chance to speak with Kazunori Yamauchi and the Sony AI team about Gran Turismo Sophy in the coming days — let me know if you guys have any specific questions about Sophy that you'd like answered. 👍

• will there be some scalibility option so avarage driver could have any chance for winning
• what with the hilarious pitlane line on le mans and how it wasn't a penalty

 

[s0cks]

As GTS and GT7 both need an online connection to be able to do just about anything, utilising cloud based computing to assist it is perfectly possible.

One of the current ML based AI's does exactly that.

Yeah, but the load would be immense. Potentially tens of thousands of players online at once. I don't think Sony are going to maintain a server farm that can handle that load, just so you and I can have smart AI in single player.

 

[Freeman_Cruz]

Considering in the video they said that it needed cloud computing power with parallel PS systems I can't see how this can run on PS4 or PS5. I would have to imagine that the AI will learn the track, and once learned this will be burned into a patch (i.e. it won't continue learning on your own PS). What it will need to do on the fly though is react to other drivers.

As for people moaning about this ruining the campaign - I would say it's highly unlikely it'll be put in the campaign mode. That mode would have been tweaked for the current AI in GT7. And if it's the same old, chase the rabbit, style campaign then a super fast, human-like, AI is not going to be appropriate. I would imagine this would be saved for challenges/custom races where you want a good close race, and winning is not that important. Caveat is if they can tweak the speed of the AI, then they could potentially add it to the campaign without making it faster than the old AI - but instead just giving you a more enjoyable race because they react to your driving better.

Machine learning is computationally heavy on the learning process, not the use of the model.

The model is the "thing" that is saved after running a machine learning algorithm on training data after many, many hours and represents the rules, numbers, and any other algorithm-specific data structures needed to make predictions.

It took some very, very heavy computational work for Google to train Google translate and live transcription, but the model can work on your phone offline.

 

[s0cks]

Machine learning is computationally heavy on the learning process, not the use of the model.

The model is the "thing" that is saved after running a machine learning algorithm on training data after many, many hours and represents the rules, numbers, and any other algorithm-specific data structures needed to make predictions.

It took some very, very heavy computational work for Google to train Google translate and live transcription, but the model can work on your phone offline.

Yup, that's better said than I put it. It will be a burned in model that they could potentially also update in patches.

 

[daan]

I will have the chance to speak with Kazunori Yamauchi and the Sony AI team about Gran Turismo Sophy in the coming days — let me know if you guys have any specific questions about Sophy that you'd like answered. 👍

Are you concentrating on pure speed or are there some Sophy's that are better at looking after their tyres?

Does Sophy use a virtual steering wheel, complete with time it takes to go from lock-to-lock, or is she "wired" directly to the game and able to make quicker movements?

 

[Magog]

Yup, that's better said than I put it. It will be a burned in model that they could potentially also update in patches.

And it doesnt need the same level of training to beat an average player that it does to beat Fraga. Give it 5 laps to learn and that's more than enough challenge for most folks. Given PP points are calculated via a virtual lap in the background I think Sophy could even be implemented in Track Creator tracks relatively easily.

 

[ivann]

Kaz has stated the AI has been worked on and improved for GT7

then it MUST be true

Is there an estimated timeframe

soon