Gran Turismo Sophy: Sony AI x Polyphony Digital

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br1x
Idk, honestly sounds like that is very, very far away. B-Spec with giving it instructions like different pace, having tire degredation and fuel usage, even having it drive over 400 cars on all tracks under different weather conditions when they are currently at 3 cars on 3 tracks in 1 condition. And as I understand it from their comments on the drawbacks of their machine learning technology, they can't use any of those 3 cars or tracks to apply it to some to degree to other cars, tracks or conditions. Seriously sounds like years away.
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I don't know how true your statement can be nor if I am in full agreement of it.

It can be that far away, but did they say they never tested it on other conditions? When did they start working on it? And what about similar systems in other games?
 
Using Sophy to test, and apply, a better form for the B.O.P. sounds pretty good. So far, the B.O.P. is not balanced at all, improving that is very encouraging.

It will be great racing when we can pick the car we want to race in, instead of just using the O.P. car of the track. Our races will start to look like real events, instead of one make races that they currently are.

There's nothing wrong with one make races, but they should be stated as such, not the hand full of cars that are the O.P. cars of all the tracks. I find the repetitiveness rather boring.
 
At least the news that B-Spec can also make it through the game while using Sophy as a driver is an indicator that Sophy could be used as a regular AI, not only reserved for special case like Lewis Hamilton Challenge or such.

Otherwise B-Spec too OP if it has Sophy while the other AI is the usual poor ones.
 
Vspectra
Where does it say that in the article though? We've already seen multiple Sophies with different "personalities" used in a race against the top players. Plus the article mentions they will race with you.

“Sophy will probably appear in front of the player in three forms,” Yamauchi-san explained. “As a teacher that will teach driving to players, a student that will learn sportsmanship from players, and as a friend to race with. I wouldn’t rule out the possibility of a B-Spec mode, where the player is the race director and Sophy is the driver.”
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Sure, but to be pedantic it says a friend, singular. It's true I don't know that they can only run one instance of Sophy on the console, but it's better to temper your expectations at this time.

In any case it won't be in the game at launch.


As for BSpec, having your AI outclass all others is the same asymmetry of you the player vs. AI, but it's not ideal. There's less of an issue if pitting your Bob against other players' online, so that seems more likely.

It depends what they can achieve in a reasonable time frame after launch.
 
RandomCarGuy17
I don't know how true your statement can be nor if I am in full agreement of it.

It can be that far away, but did they say they never tested it on other conditions? When did they start working on it? And what about similar systems in other games?
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How is it supposed to work in other conditions? They do a trial and error learning for the best line/breaking points/acceleration points on a track, if you change the tire compound that is all changed. Let alone different weather/track conditions(which are dynamic), cars or tracks.

In the article Kaz says "it’s not possible to make it learn ‘a specific behavior’ that is simple for a rule-based AI.” which means you can't just use the current Sophy and make it drive in the 5 different pace settings from the old B-Spec modes and you can't make it adjust to its tire condition, it has to learn all that by itself.
 
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br1x
How is it supposed to work in other conditions? They do a trial and error learning for the best line/breaking points/acceleration points on a track, if you change the tire compound that is all changed. Let alone different weather/track conditions(which are dynamic), cars or tracks.

In the article Kaz says "it’s not possible to make it learn ‘a specific behavior’ that is simple for a rule-based AI.” which means you can't just use the current Sophy and make it drive in the 5 different pace settings from the old B-Spec modes and you can't make it adjust to its tire condition, it has to learn all that by itself.
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Well yeah, the A.I. would have to learn how to handle those conditions and adapt them to its driving style. I assume it would be the same approach it took with learning how to drive in the cars and track combination it was given.

and actually, I think I know how B-Spec mode could work with this A.I. For perhaps a more challenging form of B-Spec mode, that will also perhaps be less frustrating than GT5 or 6's. Each of our own Sophies will start out as a rookie and slowly learn to become better over time with more time given to them, maybe being able to take Sophy to different tracks for testing and it will learn the track and eventually be trained on different conditions and such. Think of it like how B-Spec works in GT5, but a bit more refined.

As for set modes, we might not need them. If the A.I. can be trained to learn how pitting works in this B-Spec mode, it might learn how and when to do so.
 
The track ahead of Sophy is divided into 60 equally-spaced segments, with the length of each segment calculated dynamically by the car’s speed. Each segment represents approximately the next 6 seconds of travel at any given time
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I think there's mistake in the news arcticle - 6 seconds is for all 60 segments, not for only one from those 60 segments. Sophy sees only part of the track which it can overcome in next 6 seconds, so one segment is 0.01 sec which is represented on the picture
 
Pete_J_C
who else heard the part during the Q&A, in response to the question (paraphrase): "how will you make sophy compete at a lower level against average drivers?" and then his response was: "use a sophy that has been on the track for less time and therefore learned less", which is.. great! but then he said: "another idea is to give sophy a slightly slower car".. with kaz enthusiastically nodding, and I nearly slam my face into the keyboard
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Slightly slower car with super human driving abilities, I do not see a huge problem. Have the experience can make it a better driver to race with, rather than having a less tuned Sophy doing noob move. Either way it was a throw away statement. People get hung up on every word or sentence. He was just getting at the fac that he is not sure and they would have to play with things in to find what works the best.

Someone else got caught up on the fact that he said race with a friend when talking about sophy. It could be one person it could be more, it could be just the language that he used. It could be that ps4 may only be able to run one sophy but the ps5 could run more. We have already seen multiple sophy's racing against multiple drivers. I do not know or remember what the set up was when this happen but they can have more than one sohpy's running at once. What that means for the game who knows, I am sure at this point poly does not know either.

I do not think Kaz speaks with the intention of every word being picked apart, especially with things he does not know yet. I feel like this is something people should keep in mind.
 
kjeldsen
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?
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That really doesn't make a lot of sense to me since the very official demonstration of Sophy was running on PS4.
 
Taidehaamu
That really doesn't make a lot of sense to me since the very official demonstration of Sophy was running on PS4.
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I believe that if there's any PS5 exclusivity, it won't necessarily be for lack of power, but rather PD potentially dropping support for the PS4 version before Sophy's GT7 integration is ready.

I haven't read anything that alludes to when Sophy will come to GT7 beyond "in a future update," so that is of course assuming the worst. It could come within the game's first year, for all we know.
 
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ShiftingGears
I always saw it as a tool for when players wanted the reward for completing an event but didn't actually enjoy racing in that event enough to compete in it. Its main use was as a band-aid for bad game design.
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Where I stand as well, though admittedly, I (and probably a good chunk of this forum) probably only used B-Spec for endurance races since that was about the only place where it had any sort of practical use.
 
TrevorPhilips
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went and found this image you made where you called people skeptical of sophy AI implementation and the fact that we were likely to get another crappy AI, all clowns.

from Jordan's review:
"Most of the races consist of rolling starts, with you starting all the way at the back of the field. Your task, then, is not really to race against the other cars, but simply to pass them all before you run out of laps. This has been unfortunately typical in Gran Turismo games for quite some time now, but the implementation in GT7 is somehow more egregious and frustrating than ever. For such a highly polished and otherwise brilliantly executed game, this awkward gameplay mechanic stands out."
 
Pete_J_C
went and found this image you made where you called people skeptical of sophy AI implementation and the fact that we were likely to get another crappy AI, all clowns.

from Jordan's review:
"Most of the races consist of rolling starts, with you starting all the way at the back of the field. Your task, then, is not really to race against the other cars, but simply to pass them all before you run out of laps. This has been unfortunately typical in Gran Turismo games for quite some time now, but the implementation in GT7 is somehow more egregious and frustrating than ever. For such a highly polished and otherwise brilliantly executed game, this awkward gameplay mechanic stands out."
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I stand by everything pointed out in that picture. Sophy is related to GT7, Drivatars and Sophy (whilst similar) are not the same, raw speed and finding lines are two big parts of racecraft and the last point will be decided by the future. I'll quote you when that time comes Mr Pete J Clown. :cheers:
 
Big hopes with Sophy, but I really really want Poly to not just implement it but polish and balance the career mode to it. Because Sophy would mean such a revolution to the current gameplay that it's quite uncertain if Poly will do something that is up to the quality of the AI itself.

Seems the game just needs to get rid of the "catch the rabbit" gameplay and get proper racing to become truly special.

edit: grammar
 
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Just want to share a nice video about machine learning. It explain a bit more how you can train an AI with the reward and stuff. It sure take a lot of hours to get to lap around a track

 
ShiftingGears
I always saw it as a tool for when players wanted the reward for completing an event but didn't actually enjoy racing in that event enough to compete in it. Its main use was as a band-aid for bad game design.
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The main problems or good parts with B-spec in GT4&GT5 is that almost no one wants to and bothers to actually drive a car for 24h or 12h or even 4 hours [nurburgring 4h, roadster 4h] even if it is a LMPT car on a good track! That's why B-spec was a good option in GT5&GT4. There should always be the option to have maximum 1 hour endurance races. Ideally 24 minutes or at least maximum 30 mins. Some endurance races in GT3 are almost ok because if the length had been 50% of the GT3 endurance races it would be acceptable and fun with same nominal payout.
 
Meanwhile, we're "racing" AI with a 45 sec head start on a 5 lap race....
 
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Sophy. Track limit abuse simulator. :lol:

Lots to be learned from that replay actually. Sophy is crazy.
Screenshot (1).png
 
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I'm glad GT7 has made curbs more unforgiving. Sophy wouldn't have survived a lot of that track limit abuse with the new physics.

Like every feature, I wish we would get a rough estimate at least on when this is coming to GT7.
 

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