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"Ubisoft Ghostwriter AI Tool": Artificial intelligence helps with writing dialogue in video games

22/3/2023

Translation: machine translated

Ubisoft has presented a new AI tool for writing dialogue in video games. It is designed to relieve authors of the tedious task of writing dialogue. Many developers are sceptical about the tool.

At the Game Developer's Conference in San Francisco, Ubisoft presented a new tool for generating dialogue in video games. The "Ghostwriter AI Tool" is designed to support script authors in writing NPC dialogues.

The tool is primarily used for so-called "barks". These are short dialogues from NPCs that are triggered by certain actions by the player. A concrete example: You are walking through virtual London in "Watch Dogs Legion" and bump into a passer-by. The passer-by reacts to your bump and talks to you. This is a "Bark". The tool can also be helpful for background conversations with NPCs that take place without the player's intervention.

The "Ghostwriter AI Tool" is designed to help authors generate as many drafts and variations of barks and background dialogue as possible. First, a character is created in the tool. A line of dialogue must then be written by hand for this NPC. The tool generates further texts based on this line. The new text variations can be influenced with various inputs - such as "Talk Pretty" or "Paraphrase". The tool spits out two variants per input. The author evaluates the suggestions and selects the best variant. The more the tool is used, the more imaginative and appropriate the suggestions should be.

The tool always spits out several options. These can be edited manually, regenerated or accepted.
Source: Ubisoft

According to Ubisoft, the tool was developed in collaboration with internal teams responsible for story and dialogue. The publisher emphasises that the authors will save a lot of time with the tool. Tiresome hard work for barks and background dialogue will be eliminated. Instead, the time saved can be used for important, story-relevant dialogue, characters and cutscenes. Players should also benefit from an even more immersive game world full of unique NPC dialogue.

The new technology gives NPCs more dialogue options. Open-world games with lots of NPCs, such as «Watch Dogs Legion».
Source: MKIceAndFire / Youtube

Mixed reactions to the announcement

Many developers are sceptical about the announcement. In a few years, such tools could also be used for larger scripts and creative processes in game development. The fear that their employees will be replaced by artificial intelligence grows with such announcements. Other developers find the tool useless and see no potential for time savings at all. There are also a few voices on Twitter that are fascinated by the new technology.

Gamers are also largely unconvinced by Ubisoft's "Ghostwriter AI Tool". Some Twitter users joke that they are shocked that the poorly written dialogue in Ubisoft games in the past has not already been written by soulless robots. Others, on the other hand, see great potential for huge open-world games with lots of NPCs.

In recent weeks and months, other major developer studios have also publicised the use of artificial intelligence in their products. For example, Squanch Games announced in "High on Life" that some in-game assets were created by an image generation AI. And "Roblox" integrates AI tools directly into their engine to give inexperienced creatives access to game development.

How do you feel about the topic of artificial intelligence in video games? Do you see potential or would you prefer your games to be developed by real people instead of AI?

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