Ubisoft Ghostwriter AI Tool

Ubisoft Ghostwriter: As games expand in breadth, the challenge for writers is to ensure that each non-player character seems distinct and believable. What strategies do you employ to ensure that even if you’re communicating with hundreds of people, each exchange remains unique? Ubisoft’s research and development division, La Forge, has developed an artificial intelligence tool called Ghostwriter for this same purpose.

Ubisoft Ghostwriter
Ubisoft Ghostwriter

Ubisoft Ghostwriter isn’t meant to replace video game writers, but rather to help them out with one of their least favorite jobs: creating barks. The time saved by having Ghostwriter quickly generate rough draughts of barks (the sentences or noises made by NPCs during a triggered event) is put to better use elsewhere in the script. Ghostwriter’s founder, R&D Scientist at La Forge Montreal Ben Swanson, reflects on the technology’s origins in preparation for his GDC 2018 presentation.

The Beginnings of Ubisoft Ghostwriter

The class on Digital Literature that Ben took with two creative authors from Brown and Rhode Island School of Design sparked Ben’s interest in creative applications of Natural Language Processing when he was working on his Doctorate in Computer Science at Brown. After learning about the concept of generative models as an artistic medium in this course, Ben has been investigating how it may be used to enhance his writing. He continued his work in machine learning at Google in 2019 while employed at Stadia Games and Entertainment, and in 2021 he submitted a paper on the topic while employed at Latitude at AIDungeon.

In 2021, after hearing a GDC session from the Wateam that piqued his curiosity, Ben considered applying for a job at Ubisoft. Ben was able to meet with the folks at Ubisoft La Forge just as they were looking around for answers to some of their tech questions. They were looking for someone to perform just what I was planning to do, so the timing was ideal.

Ben’s dream of collaborating with skilled and like-minded groups came true when he linked up with the Chinese La Forge team. Thanks to their knowledge of user experience and user interface design, they were able to turn their attention to developing the tool Ghostwriter, which is now available to the public.

Concept of Ubisoft Ghostwriter

Ben had a talk with Ubisoft’s story designers and learned about a problem that needed an AI tool to solve; this interaction led to the creation of Ubisoft Ghostwriter. Having NPCs talk to each other, having enemies talk to you while you fight, or having an interaction happen when you enter a room are all great ways to immerse the player in the game world and make them feel like they’re part of something bigger than themselves. Both, though, take work from the writers that could be going towards other, more essential aspects of the story. As a result of using Ghostwriter, the writers get back that time while maintaining some say over the final product.

Ubisoft Ghostwriter “allows scriptwriters to select and polish the samples generated rather than having to compose first draught versions themselves,” as Ben puts it. In this approach, the technology is a resource for the teams to use in their creative process, with all input coming directly from those working with it.

To briefly summarize the process, scriptwriters first develop a character and interaction or line of dialogue they hope to inspire. The ghostwriter then suggests a few alternatives from which the screenwriter can pick and choose and make any necessary changes. Pairwise comparison is used in this technique for analysis and enhancement. This means that for each possible outcome, the playwright will have two options from which to choose. After a favored option is chosen, the tool learns from that choice and, after thousands of human picks, improves its efficiency and accuracy.

Challenges and Global Support faced by Ubisoft Ghostwriter

There were several obstacles to overcome while combining forces with Ubisoft La Forge and cutting-edge technology. Most gamers are familiar with the idea of artificial intelligence (AI) in games because of the roles that NPCs play in them. Yet, this definition of machine learning is too narrow for its full potential, as the market has come to see the value of AI technologies that can also learn from human input. Ben’s work on Ubisoft Ghostwriter and his interactions with teams throughout the world have led to an AI architecture at Ubisoft that accounts for this possibility while working in tandem with narrative designers to jumpstart their imaginative story and game creation processes.

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Ben notes that the effort to collaborate with like-minded teams and bring the tool to Ubisoft is complete, but that attention must now turn to facilitate the platform’s adoption by producers. By working directly with scriptwriters, we can learn their demands and tailor the tool to each game’s setting. Scriptwriters who want to take use of Ghostwriter in video game development need to become proficient with the technology and find ways to incorporate it into their workflow.

The group’s ultimate goal is to place this AI capability in the hands of storyboard artists, empowering them to effectively construct their custom AI system. They accomplished this by developing an accessible backend tool on the web, named Ernestine, that facilitates the application of machine learning models by ae. The Ghostwriter team hopes that the technology will become an intrinsic part of the production pipeline by being considered by teams before they begin the narrative process and by having models created with a vision in mind.

Future of Ubisoft Ghostwriter

Ben sees a bright future for Ubisoft Ghostwriter in video games and is confident in its place in the industry. Scriptwriters who opt to use the technology will be able to scale up their games, be more daring in their narrative designs, and retain full creative control thanks to its intuitive interface, streamlined processes, and robust AI infrastructure.

In his talk titled “Machine Learning Summit: Natural Language Generation for Games Writing,” which took place on March 21 at GDC 2018 in San Francisco, Ben discussed this technology in greater detail.

Ubisoft Ghostwriter to save scriptwriters time (Video) Watch Now

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