Artificial intelligence has long beaten people in both chess and go, but car games present completely different challenges, writes Michael Spranger, general manager of Sony AI Inc, in a blog.
On Wednesday this week, Sony released the news that they have succeeded in building an artificial intelligence model that beats the world’s best players in the Playstation game Gran Turismo.
Gran Turismo Sophy
The model, which has been named Gran Turismo Sophy, or GT Sophy, also adorns the front of this month’s Nature. A form of machine learning that combines deep learning and reinforcement learning, called deep reinforcement learning, has made the model possible.
“It took about 20 Playstations to run simultaneously for about 10 to 12 days to train the GT Sophy to go from beginner to superhuman level,” said Peter Wurman, director of Sony AI America and the team leader who designed the AI model for Reuters.
Gran Turismo first came on the market in 1997, and it has sold over 80 million copies. Digi.no was also thoroughly impressed when we tested the game in 2001.
– Gran Turismo is not only a game, but also a realistic driving simulator. Through all these years, the team behind the game has created one of the most realistic racing experiences for Playstation. This means that every single car and every single lane is modeled to simulate the real experience of driving, both in terms of image, sound and dynamics, Spranger writes.
It is precisely this realism in Gran Turismo that makes it a difficult and interesting challenge for research on artificial intelligence, Sony believes.
Complex choices in real time
Not only do drivers make complex tactical assessments, they also have to steer the vehicle and make quick choices in real time.
– Racing is about being on the verge of losing control of the car, estimating braking distances, calculating the best lines and finding the best grip on the track to maximize speed and control. All of these are in themselves interesting problems for machine learning. But you are not alone on the track, and other drivers influence the dynamics, Spranger writes in the blog.
Where chess and go are pure tactical games, Gran Turismo means that the AI must be trained in real time and that it must understand and master the physics in the real world, Sony believes.
Another challenge was finding the right balance between driving aggressively to win while driving fairly and not using collisions as a tool to knock out the other players.
The AI should also be experienced as a fun opponent.
The competitor of the future
Sony describes the model as a breakthrough, and a long step closer to the goal of an AI that can compete against the best players and that can be fun for players to compete against.
In developing the model, Sony has partnered with world-leading players.
– One of the most memorable moments was in a time trial when Emily Jones, finalist in the FIA Gran Turismo Championships 2020, talked about how she was inspired by GT Sophy to try out new racing lines that she had not seen before, writes Spranger.
