Google's New AI Companion: Revolutionising Multiplayer Gaming?
In the ever-evolving landscape of artificial intelligence, Google's latest development is turning heads. Imagine playing your favourite game not against a predictable AI opponent, but alongside a virtual co-op buddy—a companion that learns, adapts, and plays like a human teammate. This concept is at the core of Google's latest AI project, the Scalable Instructable Multiworld Agent (SIMA).
SIMA, based on DeepMind technology, is designed to be a general, instructable game-playing AI. Unlike traditional AI opponents or bots, SIMA is intended to be a more natural and human-like gaming companion. It can follow verbal instructions and understand the virtual world it inhabits, making it a potentially groundbreaking addition to the gaming experience.
Google has partnered with eight game studios to test SIMA in various games, including Valheim, Goat Simulator 3, and No Man's Sky. These open-world games were chosen to teach SIMA general gaming skills such as navigation, object interaction, and menu use. The current version of SIMA is capable of performing approximately 600 basic skills, which could drastically reduce the tedious aspects of gameplay like resource gathering and construction.
For players of games like No Man's Sky, SIMA could be a game-changer. Tasks that once felt like chores, such as finding resources or building bases, could become seamless with the help of an AI companion. Google's early results show promise, with a trained SIMA agent performing almost as well in an unseen game as an agent specifically trained for it.
Despite these exciting advancements, scepticism remains. While SIMA is adept at learning from its environment and following instructions, its ability to react and adapt in real-time, particularly in fast-paced games requiring precise actions like landing a headshot, is still unproven. Additionally, the impact of SIMA-like AI on general gameplay, and its potential to become a standard feature in multiplayer gaming, remains to be seen as the technology develops.
Google emphasises that its research is in its early stages and that SIMA's versatility and adaptability are expected to improve with time. The prospect of an AI co-op companion that doesn't require source-code access or an API to function is certainly enticing for gamers. Could SIMA be the future of multiplayer gaming? Only time will tell.