As artificial intelligence has started to take over the world (OK, that might be dramatic, but it's everywhere), gaming hasn't stayed immune from its pull.
After all, AI can speed up hundreds of tasks, which has seen plenty of developers embrace it as a way to cut costs as they try to create increasingly expensive games.
For a couple of years now, though, some big game-makers have been talking about new tech that lets them create NPCs (non-player characters) in games that are completely driven by AI, which makes them way more sophisticated than you might be used to.
So, instead of simply having one or two lines to randomly spout (if any), this means that any background character walking around could instead hold a full conversation with you.
To put that system to the test, YouTuber TmarTn made a video in mid-2023 experimenting with the latest version of the tech (at that time).
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He dropped into Epic Games' amazing The Matrix Awakens tech demo, an open-world city that looks unbelievably impressive, and hooked it up to one of these AI NPC programs.
This let him approach anyone he liked in the randomly generated city and strike up a conversation using his actual voice.
The AI characters can hear what he says, interpret it and spit out a response, so he set out to see if he could successfully convince any of these personas that they were living in a simulation.
The conversations he has in his video are a really good mix of entertaining and impressive, as the AI wriggles its way through chatting to him without completely messing up.
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Because it has to speak its generated phrases out loud, these conversations are pretty stilted, with its voice pack still needing a little work, but some of the lines it comes up with are impressively credible.
In fact, some even seem to accept it, saying they "can't handle it", without actually doing anything about it.
It's pretty clear that the system has limitations, but it's also wild to think of where it'll be in a few years with more development.
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As people in the comments have pointed out: "Bro the fact that you can actually speak to a character in real time and have them talk back is insane to me." Another person wrote: "This is genuinely incredible.... I cant believe thats actually possible to have a real-time conversation with an NPC like this."
Some people might feel that this will ultimately lead to games with less unique writing and more generic encounters, but there's no denying the tech is progressing really rapidly.
Don't expect to see AI NPCs in GTA VI when it comes out in late 2025, but in a few years they might be more common than you'd think.