[up2isomorphism]

> For example, video game space has already been trying to create AI-powered NPCs, world generation and story-telling (e.g. Inworld AI).

To me this is a downside compared to the NPC generated by humans, since that’s the only reason I would like to read them.

[bick_nyers]

What if the LLM that a specific NPC utilizes was handcrafted/fine-tuned by a human?

[MisterBastahrd]

You don't even necessarily need to have them coming up with valid speech. Simply giving out random quests and rewards would keep people running on a loot treadmill for most open world multiplayer games.

[LeanderK]

I think at first even background NPCs that don't give quests and rewards would be nice. Sort of give everyone a character and let them just babble. It breaks the immersion to hear the same phrases repeatedly. You can still handcraft every important quest and interaction to achieve high fidelity, but I would like random NPCs you bump into to not just repeat things all the time.

[swatcoder]

You're more likely to see studios (who want lots of more varied content) use generative AI in the studio, where they might generate and review it before release.

Letting generators run free on the client sets up different kinds of immersion-breaking, where NPC's hallucinate misleading details about the story/world, can be tricked into reciting off-topic absurdities or age-rating violations, etc. AAA studios can't afford the embarrassment of that and smaller designers with pride of craft won't see their signature come through the art in it. Surely, some designers will figure out ways to make it work great for some specific idea, but it's not the best way to use the technology in most cases.

[fragmede]

Sounds like there's a ton of money to be had to someone that can solve those problems though. A version of fallout where I can go up to people/things and just start talking to them, instead of picking from a list of things to say? :shutupandtakemymoney:

[swatcoder]

To make this work, you need your LLM-based AI to outperform any other form of generating quests and rewards -- and that performance is measured on things like player enjoyment, game/story progression, exploitability, client system requirements or server operating costs, etc and most of those things are very hard to constrain or optimize for with an LLM right now.

While the costs are hidden from end users and are going down quickly, good LLM's remain very expensive to run and very hard to keep on track compared to other options.

[MisterBastahrd]

You're trying to big brain something that isn't that complicated or special.

I never said that every interaction with an NPC must necessarily require AI to create a new quest and reward from scratch. Players aren't that savvy. You just generate a pool of quests and assign them to NPCs in the instance. Players who are addicted to loot treadmills will stay in the game and pay for boosts and other rewards as long as there is content to engage them. This more than pays for the AI service.

[techjamie]

You could maybe pull this off in a game like Borderlands where the loot is basically just the same dozen guns but with different numbers and effects. But as is, the LLM text isn't going to be much different than a sufficiently large AdLib system.

I think there is value to be gained in having LLMs as part of the development process, maybe even the game itself, but I think conventional methods are about as sufficient for quests.

[chongli]

Yeah. I have played a bunch of the roguelike Caves of Qud [1] and it has both hand-written text and procedurally generated text. The former is quite interesting and relevant to both gameplay and plot. The latter is mostly uninteresting and irrelevant, though it does work as "filler." This is similar to how procedurally-generated grass can give a more natural look to a hill than you'd get with tiles (which are incredibly easy to spot unless a ton of work is put into hiding the seams and repeating patterns).

I still long for the day when we can have procedurally-generated stories and quests that are actually interesting to play through. I have no idea how that is going to work though!

[1] https://www.cavesofqud.com

[FooBarBizBazz]

> I still long for the day when we can have procedurally-generated stories and quests that are actually interesting to play through.

It's an interesting artistic and technical challenge to investigate, absolutely. I hope people work on it, and I'm sure they already are.

However, let me also offer a counterpoint with something much simpler: coffee.

It is possible to fully automate the process of making an espresso drink. You can buy cheap versions of these machines that will sit on your kitchen counter; the quality of the drinks so produced is not the highest, but I suspect it's entirely possible to build a machine that would actually make high-quality drinks, perhaps with even more precision than a human can.

Yet the opposite trend has prevailed over the last few decades. Not long ago, Americans drank drip coffee (hence the approximation thereof as the Americano). This is an easy process to make in large batches with minimal labor. It is almost fully automatic, without any "automation". And certainly this still exists all over the place. But we now also have coffee shops everywhere -- witness the explosion of Starbucks out of its home in Seattle -- where people, baristas, individually make espresso drinks for customers. This is immensely popular.

Why are tons of people now employed in this way, and why hasn't it been automated? Is it really just a matter of cost?

I don't think so.

I think the knowledge that another person took the trouble to do something for you is in fact part of the product. Consider the practice of drawing designs, like leaves or hearts, in the milk foam. This is entirely unnecessary, from a taste perspective. If you put a lid on it, as is commonly done, you will not even see it. But it carries a message -- that somebody gave enough of a damn to do it.

(We could then analyze how this phenomenon gets watered down and eventually destroys itself when it tries to turn itself into a mass-produced fast-food franchise staffed by underpaid/exploited proletarians, but that would take this post in another direction.)

My point is, I think something similar happens in video games. The very knowledge that another person was involved is important. You are receiving communication from this person. It does something to synchronize, partially, your mind with theirs. And this is a thing we appreciate. If there's no person on the other end, why should we care?

This general phenomenon of paradoxiciality can be a bad thing. It can "feel like" socializing, without producing the actual, real, thick social networks that give us rich lives. There can be an exploitative and even druglike dynamic. It isn't entirely a good class of phenomena.

But in small doses I think it's good, useful, important. I think it's a core part of what makes art valuable. And of course, it applies to games.

This is why, I believe, we will not fully automate the telling of stories, or the making of lattes. The person doing it is important.

[chongli]

I think the knowledge that another person took the trouble to do something for you is in fact part of the product.

It's an interesting thesis but I don't for a second believe Starbucks sells billions of coffees because people want the barista experience. Starbucks would absolutely automate their business with fancy machines if they could. The problem is that the drinks are so complicated and customizable that no one has built a machine capable of making them all.

Plus there are plenty of people who order Starbucks drinks through an app and never actually meet the barista who made them. If those drinks were made at some fully automated commissary and delivered by drone they'd be just as happy.

The very knowledge that another person was involved is important. You are receiving communication from this person.

That's important for some people, and some games, but not for everyone. I play roguelikes mainly for the challenge. The procedurally generators in these games can create bizarre and very challenging situations no human could ever come up with.

If there's no person on the other end, why should we care?

Because it's a puzzle for your mind to figure out. It's why people play solitaire games (with a deck of cards), random sudokus, tetris, etc.

[FooBarBizBazz]

> Plus there are plenty of people who order Starbucks drinks through an app and never actually meet the barista who made them.

Yeah, that's a really strong counterargument.

[FooBarBizBazz]

> This general phenomenon of paradoxiciality

That was supposed to be "parasociality".