Sony tests AI-driven PlayStation avatars, showcasing Horizon’s Aloy in an unexpected example.

A new leak has revealed PlayStation maker Sony is working on AI-driven characters, including Aloy from the Horizon series, which seems like a somewhat ironic choice given she is a character growing up in a post-apocalyptic world overrun by rogue AI-controlled machines.

The leaked footage shows Sharwin Raghoebardajal – who serves as a director of software engineering at Sony Interactive Entertainment, working on video game technology, AI, computer vision, and face technology for Sony’s PlayStation Studios Advanced Technology Group – interacting with the AI Aloy. AI-oy?

In the footage, Raghoebardajal asks Aloy a number of questions, such as “how are you”, to which the character replies with AI-powered voice and facial movements that she is ok, but “dealing with a sore throat”. When questioned further, AI-oy then explains some Horizon lore.

The demo shown in the leaked footage is a prototype which has been developed alongside Horizon developer Guerrilla Games, Raghoebardajal says.

“This is just a glimpse of what is possible,” adds the Sony employee.

As for how it has been created, The Verge reports this demo uses OpenAI’s Whisper for speech-to-text, as well as GPT-4 and Llama 3 for decision-making, and Sony’s proprietary Emotional Voice Synthesis for speech generation.

Aloy’s facial animations, meanwhile, are powered by Sony’s Mockingbird technology.

Eurogamer has reached out to Sony for further comment.

AI remains a hot topic in the industry and several developers have flirted with the technology. Last month, Microsoft trumpeted the announcement of Muse, a new “generative AI breakthrough” designed to aid “gameplay ideation”. Also in February, Take-Two Interactive boss Strauss Zelnick opened up about his views on AI, calling the concept of artificial intelligence “an oxymoron”.

Meanwhile, the Microsoft-owned Activision recently came under fire for its use of generative AI, admitting some in-game content in Call of Duty has been created using the technology.

For more on the subject be sure to check out Ed’s feature: How AI is changing video game development forever.