Gran Turismo Sophy: Sony AI x Polyphony Digital

[ThruxtonGT]

Please do share how to turn these annoying little buggers off. That would improve the experience.

In the pause menu turn off player names. Also if you don’t want them to appear too left you can choose to display car info only

 

[happycorey]

Tried it on easy and the way it fights to hold you off and move over to block you
its pretty cool.

It's a nice gesture, but it's too aggressive and weaves left to right. There's no rhyme or reason other than it is trying to prevent you from passing, but not in any reasonable manner.

It will absolutely come back soon. They want feedback on it. You'll see it in GT7 as a permanent staple. I wouldn't be surprised to see another limited event with it as soon as this one expires.

I'm sure since it launched they're compiling data from the times people are completing it, or how the players stack up against Sophy. The next timed event will have a little more fine tuned Sophys to make it more competitive, and whatever other learning Sophy has done about awareness and racing others on track.

IMHO there should ideally be another level added, maybe halfway between "Expert" and 1v1.

Other than that I'm impressed.

This is probably something they'll learn, if more users are easily completing the Expert event. The only issue is that it doesn't seem to scale easily. Each one of these car/track combos are curated for Sophy to perform at it's peak. And without thousands of laps on those combinations they couldn't just implement Sophy on whichever the player chooses.

Although they might be able to compress that learning down to a short load screen, like how the PP is generated. Just a little more comprehensive lol

 

[Monkey Man]

Thanks Corey.

 

[jonoholland29]

I felt a little underwhelmed with Sophy initially.

This was my first time back in GT7 for months and I don’t usually drive these cars so there was a bit of getting used to them - but I managed to beat Tsukuba on my first tries and 1v1 on my second.

I’m only a low B rated driver and often less than a second off the silver time trials so I expect a few will find it even easier.

The Lambo at Suzuka though I am struggling at Expert. I just cannot get the car to turn.

I streamed it all on twitch if you’d like to see it

 

[evldave333]

Ive been mulling how Sophy could be implemented for a variety of skill levels. How to make Sophy adaptive and competitive is going to be the secret sauce for enjoyment. Sophy's full potential could be used to mitigate the upgrade path most of us go on when playing the game / currently nerfing a car to fit reg's is a chore / unsatisfactory for me at least. Upgrading the cars could become more meaningful and necessary to keep pace, and downgrading faffing in menu's before getting to a race could be eliminated in the single player experience (faster click through to get racing is not GT's strong suite).
Could Sophy attenuate itself in real time to how you're driving (waxing and waning lap by lap) this could be perfect for learning and conversely useful for players who are sub optimal. As I get older im finding my concentration duration is decreasing a system that allows for this, but still provides competition would be great. Imagine you want to compete at the highest level and this can be offered with near perfection routines, but for those times you are tired or a new player learning the ropes the game adapts to it.
In terms of realism can Sophy have a mistakes routine? A percentage of lock ups, missed apex even crashes? perhaps based on real world driving statistics relating to weather / track conditions?
Borrowing an idea from grid could Sophy go 100% perfection in a rage mode if you punt the AI car off and hunt you down, this would encourage race etiquette lol

 

[Magog]

From what I've seen It looks like beta Sophy actually only has two AI difficulties, the first being when there's four AI opponents, and the second when it's just you vs Sophy.

Changing the car that Sophy pilots as the difficulty slider isn’t a good solution especially if they are considering one make races in the future.

They could just as easily add weight or remove HP to slow it down if they don't have a way to dumb it down.

 

[Saargasm]

Sophy is a lot of fun. Intense fun. I’m not the level driver a lot of you are, but I did gold all race 1 and through expert on race 2 (although I did have to resort to being dirty on last chicane on 4th attempt as it was about to pull off the same move 3-times in a row and beat me last second - but I turned into it and it pulled up)

What I was sort of hoping for was some sort of coaching feedback after the race. What I did well. Where I’m losing time, etc..

Also, on the 1v1’s (so far) why do I have to drive a stock car with CS tires? I NEVER use comfort tires, ever. So I don’t know how to drift effectively and you can’t use the same line and technique as the prior races with at least SM’s. Just let me use the setup from expert - I realize that if Sophy had the better car too it would smoke me 😂 but still! Maybe split the 1v1 into two?

And put a diamond level race for the real drivers. One where someone of my level has 98%+ chance of losing. But I’ve seen too many posts of people saying it’s way too easy and that shouldn’t be the case. We’ve all seen the vids of the professionals losing over and over and if someone wants that kind of punishment let them have it lol.

 

[Veinz]

I’m really impressed, they are very quick without feeling like they have some cheesy advantage. Hopefully this ai is fully implemented into single player in the next GT.

 

[Magog]

Sophy is a lot of fun. Intense fun. I’m not the level driver a lot of you are, but I did gold all race 1 and through expert on race 2 (although I did have to resort to being dirty on last chicane on 4th attempt as it was about to pull off the same move 3-times in a row and beat me last second - but I turned into it and it pulled up)

What I was sort of hoping for was some sort of coaching feedback after the race. What I did well. Where I’m losing time, etc..

Also, on the 1v1’s (so far) why do I have to drive a stock car with CS tires? I NEVER use comfort tires, ever. So I don’t know how to drift effectively and you can’t use the same line and technique as the prior races with at least SM’s. Just let me use the setup from expert - I realize that if Sophy had the better car too it would smoke me 😂 but still! Maybe split the 1v1 into two?

And put a diamond level race for the real drivers. One where someone of my level has 98%+ chance of losing. But I’ve seen too many posts of people saying it’s way too easy and that shouldn’t be the case. We’ve all seen the vids of the professionals losing over and over and if someone wants that kind of punishment let them have it lol.

Because Sophy is also using comfort tires and that way you have equal equipment.

 

[Monkey Man]

They could just as easily add weight or remove HP to slow it down if they don't have a way to dumb it down.

My thoughts exactly bro'.

Tyre handicaps are also an obvious option.

 

[RedRockValley]

They could just as easily add weight or remove HP to slow it down if they don't have a way to dumb it down.

Personally I hope that it won't have to come to that. I have trust in Sony's AI researchers...

 

[Monkey Man]

If nerfing their cars seems an unfair / sloppy way to do it, one idea might simply be to scale throttle inputs back by x%.

They'd still brake and corner at full tilt, but you'd be able to take 'em on the straights.

 

[Sojiira]

So far the best part from the event is the feeling of being under pressure, knowing you'll be passed the moment you make a mistake. But 1v1 Sophy is just too fast for me I can't keep up or even think of doing overtakes.

One of the fun parts racing online is the back and forth we can have. They nailed the one thats super fast and takes off during the race but would love one thats a second or two off the pace like me.

Overall super stoked to see them starting to implement Sophy into GT7 and excited to see what this evolves into.

 

[englishbob]

From the GT article. This is a test version and want players to send in feedback, they're looking to implement it for the whole game eventually.

“There are still some technical challenges to overcome to make it available through the whole [game],” Dr. Spranger explained. “Another big factor is a lot of work went into the design of this interaction. I think we all want to see how it goes and hear players’ feedback and learn from that experience, to design the best way to release it in the whole game.”

“It’s a big step,” Dr. Wurman added. “We want to make sure we get it right and get enough feedback to really understand how this might be enhancing the experiences of players.”

Player Feedback​

The Sony AI team is eager to get feedback on Sophy, and they are actively encouraging players to help them develop the system further.

“I hope that people share what they like, they share their experiences, and that they also share the stuff they don’t like. We want to hear both of those things,” said Dr. Wurman. “[We hope] they actually share videos online so that we can really understand how people feel about it, the way it makes them race better, or worse, or helps them learn, and so on.”

Seems interesting.

"Actively encouraging players to share feedback" though - and yet not actually explaining how to go about giving them that feedback - either in that article or actually in the game itself - good luck!

 

[Imari]

If nerfing their cars seems an unfair / sloppy way to do it, one idea might simply be to scale throttle inputs back by x%.

They'd still brake and corner at full tilt, but you'd be able to take 'em on the straights.

But if you're trying to replicate the behaviour of a slower driver then you want the exact opposite of that. Any fool can mash the loud pedal in a straight line and go flat out, but it's in the corners where skill makes you faster. Presumably the point is to replicate the behaviour of human drivers, and that wouldn't.

Nerfing their cars is an unfair and sloppy way to do it, but at least they drive more or less like a high level human in sub-standard machinery.

 

[appu]

To slow Sophy down, one good way would be to make it unlearn the unnatural cornering technique (braking late and drifting into the corner). Even Fraga wouldn't be able compete with that!

 

[Magog]

Seems interesting.

"Actively encouraging players to share feedback" though - and yet not actually explaining how to go about giving them that feedback - either in that article or actually in the game itself - good luck!

Fairly certain they mention videos as one example. Any upload made from your PS5 is probably easily tracked and of course you can also tag things manually. Do they read this forum? Probably not but they likely are monitoring social media and Sony AI have their own accounts on Twitter, etc.

 

[ShiftingGears]

They could just as easily add weight or remove HP to slow it down if they don't have a way to dumb it down.

Yes but that's sloppy because thats the exact same problem the AI has now, just in reverse.

 

[dabz343]

But if you're trying to replicate the behaviour of a slower driver then you want the exact opposite of that. Any fool can mash the loud pedal in a straight line and go flat out, but it's in the corners where skill makes you faster. Presumably the point is to replicate the behaviour of human drivers, and that wouldn't.

Nerfing their cars is an unfair and sloppy way to do it, but at least they drive more or less like a high level human in sub-standard machinery.

But damn, can't you see this is progress? Lighten up, the world of GT is better because Sophy is being developed. This constant negativity about things that some are daring to prototype. It's gonna have shortcoming...it's par for the course.

 

[Imari]

But damn, can't you see this is progress? Lighten up, the world of GT is better because Sophy is being developed. This constant negativity about things that some are daring to prototype. It's gonna have shortcoming...it's par for the course.

Sorry, what?

I'm on board with Sophy, I think it's an excellent step. I've already in this thread said almost exactly what you just posted.

This looks cool. There are obvious limitations, but I think this is about as good as could be reasonably expected from Sophy. It's certainly a lot more than I expected, and a lot sooner. Very interesting.

And nothing in what you quoted says anything about Sophy being a bad thing. I was replying to disagree with the idea of "improving" Sophy by limiting throttle input. I think that makes it a worse replica of a human driver, whereas as it is now it does fairly well at pretending to be a very fast human in whatever car it's in.

It's unfortunate that they only way they could come up with to handicap it was to put it in slower machinery than the player, but it's on brand for Gran Turismo races and it works surprisingly well. However that's a game design problem, not a Sophy problem. Sophy is doing it's job by driving very quickly and with better racecraft than a huge proportion of players.

Is it permissible to discuss what we think of how this already pretty interesting AI and game mode can be improved? Or is it considered "constant negativity" to comment on things that aren't even in the game yet and may never come to pass?

Naysayers...where are you guys? You must have some pent up pessimism to share? Have a laugh, it's ok when things develop to be better than what you had professed.

Oh, I see how it is. You're trawling the thread looking for anything that you can paint as negative so that you can try and gloat about your unwavering optimism and dedication to the brand. Gotcha.

You know, I heard that Kaz is actually a member of GTP and he sends personal messages of thanks to people who praise his game regularly.

 

[05XR8]

I know this is about SOPHY, but @Jordan and @Famine would gtplanet be able to ask if KaZ(in a future interview) improves the AI each update? I’ve been noticing since this current update, AI(can I still call them AI?), in my custom races, seem to be much more competitive and competent.
They seem to be genuinely racing me and I haven’t tried the SOPHY events yet.

 

[Sturdy]

I know this is about SOPHY, but @Jordan and @Famine would gtplanet be able to ask if KaZ(in a future interview) improves the AI each update? I’ve been noticing since this current update, AI(can I still call them AI?), in my custom races, seem to be much more competitive and competent.
They seem to be genuinely racing me and I haven’t tried the SOPHY events yet.

I've felt this too, in terms of they seem to be making the odd defensive move which I don't remember them doing before? i.e coming up to a sharp corner they'll pull to the inside to block the inside line... Might just be in my head though or more obvious being in VR.

Did the Trial Mountain Sophy races last night, expert was very competitive, the way Sophy can perfectly, and consistently, hit a braking point in to a deliberate slide is very difficult to stick with. I didn't even bother trying the 1vs1, I don't have a chance!

 

[Gingerale]

I felt a little underwhelmed with Sophy initially.

This was my first time back in GT7 for months and I don’t usually drive these cars so there was a bit of getting used to them - but I managed to beat Tsukuba on my first tries and 1v1 on my second.

I’m only a low B rated driver and often less than a second off the silver time trials so I expect a few will find it even easier.

The Lambo at Suzuka though I am struggling at Expert. I just cannot get the car to turn.

I streamed it all on twitch if you’d like to see it

I really don't understand people race the Tsukuba AI and then go online and say Sophy is not good. You clearly don't understand the parameters then.
Race 1 vs 1 on Suzuka, let Sophy pass and then let us know if you think Sophy is easy. Because then you are truly racing against Sophy. On Tsukuba you get a superior car and get a headstart.

It's unfortunate that they only way they could come up with to handicap it was to put it in slower machinery than the player

This is the first glance of Sophy, its way to early to say they won't have ways to make Sophy slower other than ingame regulations.

 

[jonoholland29]

I really don't understand people race the Tsukuba AI and then go online and say Sophy is not good. You clearly don't understand the parameters then.
Race 1 vs 1 on Suzuka, let Sophy pass and then let us know if you think Sophy is easy. Because then you are truly racing against Sophy. On Tsukuba you get a superior car and get a headstart.

I didn't say it was bad? It's brilliant. But I was underwhelmed. It wasn't what I was expecting. I guess from the update notes I expected more of a scale from the Easy, Intermediate and Expert other than they're all Michael Schumacher and I just have a better car. I was maybe hoping for Ralf and Mick.

The 1v1 was exactly how I expected it. Impossible. But fascinating. But not useful yet - like others I'd be interested to see how this is implemented into a driver coach.

 

[Commander_SR]

I did all the races in tsukuba I think its the first one right?? I won all 3 against sophy I really loved it it felt more real and more like racing but I think the tyre handicap needs to go or they could just upgrade sophy's tires instead of nerfing mine the shift in grip from the beginner to expert really caught me off guard as I was expecting to have the same grip and sophys would get better..... that said I really love to see her reaction smileys as you pass her and she is really agressive too she rammed me more then once but I found she took the last turn too agressively and lost speed so I took it alot tighter and in a lower gear but hell yeah lets get sophy in all races just not the tire nerf on us

 

[Magog]

Sophy is a lot of fun. Intense fun. I’m not the level driver a lot of you are, but I did gold all race 1 and through expert on race 2 (although I did have to resort to being dirty on last chicane on 4th attempt as it was about to pull off the same move 3-times in a row and beat me last second - but I turned into it and it pulled up)

What I was sort of hoping for was some sort of coaching feedback after the race. What I did well. Where I’m losing time, etc..

Also, on the 1v1’s (so far) why do I have to drive a stock car with CS tires? I NEVER use comfort tires, ever. So I don’t know how to drift effectively and you can’t use the same line and technique as the prior races with at least SM’s. Just let me use the setup from expert - I realize that if Sophy had the better car too it would smoke me 😂 but still! Maybe split the 1v1 into two?

And put a diamond level race for the real drivers. One where someone of my level has 98%+ chance of losing. But I’ve seen too many posts of people saying it’s way too easy and that shouldn’t be the case. We’ve all seen the vids of the professionals losing over and over and if someone wants that kind of punishment let them have it lol.

You get racing tires for the Suzuka 1 vs 1 and Sport for the Trial Mountain 1 vs 1. Don't expect that to make it any easier to best Violette though. 😂

 

[Imari]

This is the first glance of Sophy, its way to early to say they won't have ways to make Sophy slower other than ingame regulations.

Of course, but this is what we've got now and from what we know of how Sophy is designed it's not easy to slow it down.

It's something that was discussed almost immediately after Sophy was revealed - how do you make something that is trained this way slower while keeping the human-like behaviour and excellent racecraft? There are good reasons to think that it's actually quite a difficult problem as all these things are intimately intertwined, so it's not at all unreasonable to assume that they don't have other ways to slow Sophy down at the moment. One assumes that it's something that they're actively looking into.

I'm not surprised that they haven't solved the problem, and I'm reasonably impressed that the solution they have works as well as it does. But it's something that limits how Sophy can be used, and it may well turn out to be a fundamental limitation of ML AI agents built in this way. There may not be an easy solution to this, or even a solution at all. Sophy may be stuck being very, very fast in whatever machinery you give her.

And just because this is a first look doesn't mean we should dismiss problems or not talk about them. In fact, I think the opposite is true and that this is the time when it's most important for problems to be discussed and dissected in detail. The developers apparently think so too.

“There are still some technical challenges to overcome to make it available through the whole [game],” Dr. Spranger explained. “Another big factor is a lot of work went into the design of this interaction. I think we all want to see how it goes and hear players’ feedback and learn from that experience, to design the best way to release it in the whole game.”

So if people could stop making like the developers don't actively want us to be talking about both the good and the bad of the Sophy experience, that'd be great.

 

[Gingerale]

Of course, but this is what we've got now and from what we know of how Sophy is designed it's not easy to slow it down.

It's something that was discussed almost immediately after Sophy was revealed - how do you make something that is trained this way slower while keeping the human-like behaviour and excellent racecraft? There are good reasons to think that it's actually quite a difficult problem as all these things are intimately intertwined, so it's not at all unreasonable to assume that they don't have other ways to slow Sophy down at the moment. One assumes that it's something that they're actively looking into.

It's not easy, but its not as hard as you make it. Right now Sophy makes 100% of the right decisions, so it generates the fastest output. PD needs to lower that so it makes more mistakes, the thing is the mistakes need to consistent and realistic. That is quite hard to do, but not impossible.

I see a lot of users seem to think Sophy is some sort of sentient AI (which cant be slowed down), which I think is quite a wrong impression. Right now I seem to think we can already pressure Sophy into making mistakes by following it really closeby.

Also, don't forget, they're now testing where Sophy is too fast and where it's too slow/unrealistic, so that to me makes it even more clear they are progressing into slowing Sophy down. But they need a lot of player data for that, which they don't have (they never used player data for Sophy).


And Im sorry for coming over as to we shouldn't discuss the Sophy flaws, but IMHO some comments are pointing in the wrong direction of what AI actually is. I think that is because of ChatGPT and DallE and such, which are built completely different.

 

[Magog]

It's not easy, but its not as hard as you make it. Right now Sophy makes 100% of the right decisions, so it generates the fastest output. PD needs to lower that so it makes more mistakes, the thing is the mistakes need to consistent and realistic. That is quite hard to do, but not impossible.

I see a lot of users seem to think Sophy is some sort of sentient AI (which cant be slowed down), which I think is quite a wrong impression. Right now I seem to think we can already pressure Sophy into making mistakes by following it really closeby.

Also, don't forget, they're now testing where Sophy is too fast and where it's too slow/unrealistic, so that to me makes it even more clear they are progressing into slowing Sophy down. But they need a lot of player data for that, which they don't have (they never used player data for Sophy).

I've seen it make plenty of "mistakes" but almost always in an effort to be a clean driver. If you mess around in front Sophy she will do anything to not hit you if possible. When following her she will react to cover you and that can be exploited but that requires you to be faster than her in the previous corner which is no mean feat.

 

[Gingerale]

I've seen it make plenty of "mistakes" but almost always in an effort to be a clean driver. If you mess around in front Sophy she will do anything to not hit you if possible. When following her she will react to cover you and that can be exploited but that requires you to be faster than her in the previous corner which is no mean feat.

Yes, because it takes penalties into account, so PD gave Sophy some sort of penalty if it hits opponents (or walls to prevent wallriding). This is deducted from the optimal times with optimal inputs, so for Sophy it's sometimes better to avoid you (and sometimes it's not).

Since Sophy looks ahead about 6 seconds and is able to calculate in milliseconds, it's easier to dodge players from behind than from the other way around

I'm talking about small errors when there is no external data in place: i.e. making errors without the player intervening in it's course.