Sony’s AI –powered GT Sophy aims to outplay best racers in simulation games

Sony AI has joined hands with Polyphony Digital (PDI) and Sony Interactive Entertainment (SIE) to unveil Gran Turismo (GT) Sophy, a racing Artificial Intelligence agent. The company claimed that GT Sophy can outrace the best players of PlayStation racing simulation game GT Sport.

Sony AI revealed that GT Sophy is an autonomous AI agent which has been developed using a combination of Sony AI’s deep reinforcement learning platform, PDI’s real driving simulator GT, and SIE’s cloud gaming infrastructure. 

Hiroaki Kitano, CEO of Sony AI, said, “Gran Turismo Sophy is a significant development in AI whose purpose is not simply to be better than human players, but to offer players a stimulating opponent that can accelerate and elevate the players’ techniques and creativity to the next level.  

“In addition to making contributions to the gaming community, we believe that this breakthrough presents new opportunities in areas such as autonomous racing, autonomous driving, high-speed robotics and control,” he said.  

Sony AI has tested the capabilities of GT Sophy by racing against four of the world’s best Gran Turismo drivers in two Race Together 2021 Challenge events, which took place on July 2, 2021 and October 21, 2021, it said in a statement.  

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By making improvements to the agent based on the results of the first race, GT Sophy outperformed the best human GT drivers in both time trial races and an FIA-Certified Gran Turismo Championships format race for the second event in October, as claimed by Sony AI.  

“AI research is a good opportunity to really think about what it means to be human and how technology and society can better co-exist,” said Kazunori Yamauchi, President of Polyphony Digital.  

“Since its first release in 1997, the Gran Turismo franchise has continued to push the boundaries of gaming and innovation through a curiosity for technology. Gran Turismo Sophy is a further demonstration of this philosophy, and I believe that this AI concept will contribute to both the future of games and automobiles.”  

Meanwhile, Sony’s key competitor Microsoft, which recently took over Activision for $68.7 billion, is also investing in AI game space.