A special demonstration of Gran Turismo Sophy ahead of the Gran Turismo World Series 2024 World Finals in Amsterdam has revealed a possible return of the fan favorite “B-Spec” mode for Gran Turismo 7.
GT Sophy has been under development for some time now, and comprises an advanced in-game AI agent developed using a machine-learning process. Originally intended to be a “superhuman” AI, capable of beating the best drivers in the world, previous exhibitions showed that Sony AI had succeeded in its brief.
Since then PD and Sony AI have been working on integrating GT Sophy into Gran Turismo 7, and we’ve seen a couple of iterations — on PlayStation 5 consoles only — with a specific, limited game mode followed by a wider but still restricted application on certain circuits.
Development has continued though, and the Amsterdam event has revealed some of what Sony AI has been working on.
The demonstration at the event didn’t have the finalists racing against Sophy, as usual, but racing with the AI in an exhibition which is heavily reminiscent of the B-Spec feature originally planned as far back as 2001 but last seen in 2013’s Gran Turismo 6.
In this mode, players could train up AI drivers and directly manage them in a race situation, setting pace and aggressiveness, requesting overtakes, and issuing pit-in commands. That appears to be what has been integrated in the newest version of GT Sophy.
The interface shows five possible “speeds”, with the player able to select from Slowest, Slow, Average, Fast, and Fastest, as well as separate “Overtake” and “Pit” choices. Your choices for Sophy influence what emotes that your car displays, and that can indicate to you whether your course of action is appropriate or stressing the AI out.
It remains to be seen if this will be coming to Gran Turismo 7, but Kaushik Subramanian — senior research scientist at Sony AI — seems positive that feedback from this event will result in something that players will be able to use in the future:
“We want the players to have a response that’s intuitive to them: if they change something they should be able to predict what’s going to happen. The more we do that, the more engaging it’s going to be to the players and they’re going to be more involved.
“Ideally, if they can predict what’s going to happen, they can use this as a way to test different kinds of strategies in long races that would be much harder to do without this AI.”
See more articles on B-Spec and Gran Turismo Sophy.
