Ubisoft’s AI NPCs are about as awful as you’d expect

Ubisoft has revealed a new form of AI-powered non-player characters (NPCs), and it’s just as icky and unnerving as you’d expect.

To coincide with the Game Developers Conference (GDC) this week, the company has released a blog post detailing NEO NPC, a project being spearheaded by a small R&D team at Ubisoft Paris. Using Nvidia’s Audio2Face application and Inworld’s Large Language Model (LLM), NEO NPC aims to create varied and believable NPC dialogue using character backstories and personalities created by human writers.

“Have you ever dreamed of having a real conversation with an NPC in a video game? Not just one gated within a dialogue tree of pre-determined answers, but an actual conversation, conducted through spontaneous action and reaction?” reads the opening of Ubisoft’s blog post.

In practice, however, NEO NPC feels anything but real. In a video from The Verge, senior editor Sean Hollister was given the chance to interact with the generative AI. In the demo, Hollister talks with Bloom, a member of a resistance group fighting back against megacorporations.

However, the exchange is as incredibly stilted as you might expect. For one, Hollister is speaking out loud through a mic to the screen, and it takes Bloom a few awkward seconds to process a response. (I don’t know about you, but the thought of speaking to my TV or monitor is also just unappealing; I’d much rather just press a button.)

The idea of Ai creating 'realistic' NPCs is based on a false myth that videogames are 'worlds' as opposed to 'media texts created by people to express ideas and tell stories'. Why would I want to listen to dialog nobody wrote? https://t.co/JbCJ5p46ak

— Brendan Keogh (@BRKeogh) March 20, 2024

Then there’s the quality of the “writing” itself which, well, I’ll let you decide for yourself:

“Hey Nelson, you made it! I’m Bloom, your future Resistance buddy. Thought we’d hang and see if we click, you know, for our epic duo. Cool with you?” says Bloom.

After Hollister says he’s having second thoughts about being part of the resistance, Bloom says:

“Whoa, hold on there. It’s natural to have doubts, especially when joining a cause like this. But you have something important to contribute, and we need you. Let’s talk it out, okay?”

After Hollister says “tell me one word why I should stay,” Bloom responds: “Passion. You can feel it, can’t you? That burning desire to make a difference, to fight for what’s right. That’s what drives us, and that’s what will keep you going through the tough times. And trust me, there will be tough times. But together, we can overcome them.”

Later on, Hollister asks Bloom about whether he’s lost anybody close in his fight.

“Yes, I’ve lost many. My son, my friends, my home. But every loss only fuels my determination to keep going. And through the resistance, I’ve found a new family. Together we can make a difference and prevent others from experiencing the same pain.”

Clearly, it’s all remarkably stilted (“robotic,” even), and Ubisoft’s blog post about NEO NPC doesn’t exactly instill confidence. “We know that developers and their creativity must still drive our projects. Generative AI is only of value if it has value for them.”

However, the company doesn’t really explain why generative AI is of value to begin with. The blog post features quotes from narrative director Virginie Mosser, who said she’s enjoyed spending the past year and a half writing for NEO NPC.

But nowhere is a justification given for why NEO NPC would be a better option than simply having a human write every line of NPC dialogue. In other situations, companies have argued that using AI for smaller tasks like this frees up developers, although developers have quickly refuted that by noting that said “grunt work” (i.e. writing small lines of dialogue for NPCs) is an important early step in narrative design.

There’s also the fact that last year’s most award-winning game, Baldur’s Gate 3, had nearly 1,900 characters with dialogue in the game who were all expertly written and acted. That’s a big reason why that game works as well as it does — it feels like a living, breathing world just teeming with people who feel real. Would that game be the same if some of those characters started spouting AI-generated dialogue and lost some of their hand-crafted personality? Certainly not.

The blog post also doesn’t address how Ubisoft will circumvent inherent biases and stereotypes that writers themselves can struggle to avoid.

While Ubisoft promised that there are “a lot of filters in place to catch toxicity and inappropriate inputs on the part of the player,” it also admits a pretty glaring shortcoming in that regard. According to Ubisoft, the team had to rework “a physically attractive female character” because its answers “veered towards flirtatious and seductive.” If NEO NPC can’t even decide to make an entire gender sound believable, that doesn’t bode well for more specific demographics.

Overall, the response on X (Twitter) to NEO NPC was quite negative, and it can best be summarized by academic and industry researcher Brendan Keogh.

“The idea of Ai creating ‘realistic’ NPCs is based on a false myth that videogames are ‘worlds’ as opposed to ‘media texts created by people to express ideas and tell stories,” he wrote. “Why would I want to listen to dialog nobody wrote?”

Source: Ubisoft