A leaked video of Sony’s internal prototype for an AI-powered NPC has appeared online, showing Aloy from the Horizon series responding to questions both in a demo and during gameplay. Shortly after a video of a presentation on the project was posted on YouTube, it was taken down by Muso, a copyright enforcement company who works for PlayStation alongside other corporate clients.
This original video, which we can obviously no longer view directly, was reported on by The Verge. The outlet, who was sent the video by an anonymous tipster, was able to look through it and have created an animation based on the video so we can see Aloy chatting away. However, the tech being demonstrated as well as Sony director of software engineering Sharwin Raghoebardajal’s narration’s aren’t present. Unless, of course, you track down another version of the video online. It’s out there.
Tom Warren from The Verge writes the following, “Aloy could be seen responding to queries with an AI-powered synthesized voice and facial movements, both in a demo setting and within the full Horizon Forbidden West game. Raghoebardajal makes it clear this is just a prototype that has been developed alongside Guerrilla Games to demonstrate the technology internally at Sony.”
This tech was running on a PC, using OpenAI’s whisper, GPT-4, and Llama 3 to get the AI speech actually working. In addition, it made ese of some of Sony’s own tech, specifically the Emotional Voice Synthesis. This demo was reportedly shown internally a year ago and behind closed doors at the Sony Technology Exchange Fair in November.
Sony isn’t the only company to experiment in this area. Nvidia, Ubisoft, Microsoft and other tech companies have all created seperate tech demos along similar lines. We even got to see Nvidia’s own AI NPC firsthand in 2024. All were developed and tested during a period of time when AI was a huge driver in financial investment worldwide.
It’s worth emphasising that unlike Nvidia, Ubisoft, etc, this tech prototype is exactly that: a protoype. There are no plans as of yet, at least not public ones, that involve this tech making its way into retail games like a new Horizon or otherwise. So, you shouldn’t get too frustrated or excited just yet. In addition, it’s interesting that this prototype hasn’t been officially revealed as of yet. Those skeptical of AI tech, which for transparency does include myself, could argue that some of the aforementioned companies rushed to show off AI tech to exploit on surge of investment in the area. In Sony’s case, it looks as though it’s cooking at this tech for the love of the game, or more likely, to get some experience developing in this area just in case it does find a foothold in wider game development.
AI as an industry remains a big topic of discussion around tech and video games, with many fears widespread about the actual benefits it provides and the potential impacts on the job market should it become something utilized in video game development. AI also is an industry on shaky ground financially speaking, with OpenAI losing billions of dollars even as the leading AI giant in the USA. Microsoft also cancelled loads of leases on AI data centres , a sign perhaps of the death of bullish AI support from the company.
What do you think? Would you even want to talk to Aloy? Let us know below!