No more ‘I took an arrow to the knee’: could AI write super-intelligent video game characters?

A new experimental game demo full of sophisticated AI characters has some game writers worried about their jobs. Is AI really going to improve games, or the games industry?

Corny dialogue has been part of video games almost since they have existed. From 1989's Zero Wing spawning the decades old All your base are belong to us" internet meme, to the clunky translations of the pre-remake Resident Evil games (the master of unlocking"), to Skyrim's infamous adventurer who once took an arrow to the knee and never shuts up about it, non-playable character (NPC) dialogue has rarely been exactly Shakespearean, and the frequent repetition doesn't help. But could AI tools change that, enabling a world full of characters that respond believably when you talk to them?

In collaboration with Google, a team of researchers from Stanford have built a game demo called Smallville that integrates the AI writing tool ChatGPT. Instead of just walking into walls and setting themselves on fire like the classic Sims characters we all knew and loved, the game's 25 characters can instead comfortably discuss topics such as local politics and composing music, pulling from ChatGPT's enormous database.

In about a year and a half, we could see this type of technology being used in smaller indie games, with wider adoption coming in about five years

It always sounds like the dawn of a new age, but tends to end up being disruptive and demoralising