Close Menu
Technology Mag

    Subscribe to Updates

    Get the latest creative news from FooBar about art, design and business.

    What's Hot

    Mark Zuckerberg Details Meta’s Plan for Self-Improving, Superintelligent AI

    July 31, 2025

    Big Tech Asked for Looser Clean Water Act Permitting. Trump Wants to Give It to Them

    July 31, 2025

    The Asus Chromebook CX14 Is a $429 Laptop That Isn’t Horrible

    July 31, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
    Subscribe
    Technology Mag
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram YouTube
    • Home
    • News
    • Business
    • Games
    • Gear
    • Reviews
    • Science
    • Security
    • Trending
    • Press Release
    Technology Mag
    Home » Is AI the Future of NPCs?
    Games

    Is AI the Future of NPCs?

    News RoomBy News RoomMarch 26, 20243 Mins Read
    Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn Reddit WhatsApp Email

    Bloom, a non-player character with a face like a potato and a black beanie pulled tight around his ears, wants to know about my strategy and how I fare in combat. “I follow a map and I punch hard,” I reply into the microphone. Text of our conversation flashes across the bottom of my screen. The NPC thinks I’m bragging. He continues to drone on about our place in the resistance and how we need to fight back, his AI-driven voice tinny enough to sound mechanical but not grating.

    What Bloom doesn’t tell me, at least not directly, is that he’s a “Neo NPC”—a generative AI creation from French video game publisher Ubisoft designed to enable players to hold conversations with characters. Bloom is still very much in his R&D era, but his creation represents one of the many ways game companies are looking to integrate machine learning into their offerings.

    At last week’s Game Developers Conference, where I got my chance to socialize with Bloom, the industry’s AI boom was in full swing. In addition to Ubisoft’s demo, there were panels on everything from bot basketball players to the “transformative applications” of gen AI. But there were also talks from Screen Actors Guild-American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA) about deepfakes and the impacts AI could have on the careers of game-makers. Prior to the event, a poll conducted by GDC organizers found that 49 percent of surveyed devs are using generative AI at their companies; four in five developers surveyed, however, said they’re concerned about the ethics of doing so.

    Amidst this, the notion of using AI for NPCs came to the fore. In addition to Ubisoft’s demo, Nvidia—the company behind many of the GPUs powering much of the AI revolution—brandished a suite of tools that enable “developers to build digital humans capable of AI-powered natural language interactions.” The company showed off those tools by releasing a clip of Covert Protocol, a tech demo it made with AI character company Inworld.

    Ubisoft demonstrated its Neo NPCs, which also use Nvidia tech, in three ways. First, I talked to Bloom to achieve a few game-given goals: get closer to Bloom, find out about the megacorps ruling the world, learn about the resistance, and so on. Bloom is effortless to fire questions off to, and he’s generally good natured. He’s been designed to be easy to handle, Ubisoft senior data scientist Mélanie Lopez Malet tells me, though there are other NPCs they’ve created that are more standoffish, if not downright aggressive. The team decided to add goals to his interactions, she explains, because in the company’s early testing they found players can get a little … shy.

    “There are people that have a bit of social anxiety,” Malet says. They don’t want to bother NPCs who seem busy, or they’re taken aback by characters that appear angry. They don’t always know what to say. “[Players] were like, ‘It’s like I’m at party where I know nobody, oh my God,’” Malet says. But she sees this as a good thing: It means the NPCs are inspiring people to use their social instincts. Players are also far more likely to open up and get personal when it’s a text conversation. “There are some things you don’t say out loud, you know?” Malet says.

    Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
    Previous ArticleFord’s Europe-only Explorer EV gets an estimated 375 miles of range
    Next Article Airtable brings AI summarization to paying users

    Related Posts

    Steam and Itch.io Are Pulling ‘Porn’ Games. Critics Say It’s a Slippery Slope to More Censorship

    July 31, 2025

    The Tiny Super Pocket Neo Geo Edition Is Affordable Retro Fun

    July 28, 2025

    A Surprise Pokémon Game Just Dropped for Switch and Mobile

    July 24, 2025

    Life Without Screens: This Camp Is a Teen’s Worst Nightmare

    July 24, 2025

    Mix Up Your Gameplay With Our Favorite Controllers for the Switch 2

    July 23, 2025

    This Is the Commodore Comeback Fans Have Waited for—but the Odds Are Still Against It

    July 22, 2025
    Our Picks

    Big Tech Asked for Looser Clean Water Act Permitting. Trump Wants to Give It to Them

    July 31, 2025

    The Asus Chromebook CX14 Is a $429 Laptop That Isn’t Horrible

    July 31, 2025

    Aaron Sorkin’s Social Network sequel might recast Mark Zuckerberg

    July 31, 2025

    How WIRED Analyzed the Epstein Video

    July 31, 2025
    • Facebook
    • Twitter
    • Pinterest
    • Instagram
    • YouTube
    • Vimeo
    Don't Miss
    Business

    Join Us for WIRED’s AI Power Summit

    By News RoomJuly 31, 2025

    The strength and capabilities of generative AI are accelerating at a dizzying pace. If you’re…

    What Your Nighttime Breathing Says About Your Health

    July 31, 2025

    Google’s Newest AI Model Acts like a Satellite to Track Climate Change

    July 31, 2025

    Steam and Itch.io Are Pulling ‘Porn’ Games. Critics Say It’s a Slippery Slope to More Censorship

    July 31, 2025
    Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of use
    • Advertise
    • Contact
    © 2025 Technology Mag. All Rights Reserved.

    Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.