A Russian artificial intelligence company named Mind Simulation is working on an AI version of Geralt of Rivia, the main character of The Witcher series. The simulation places the player in a tavern sitting across from Geralt for a conversation. Although there are many renditions of Geralt, the preview shown by Mind Simulation seems to pull Geralt's character model straight from The Witcher video games. However, Geralt's voice is not represented well, as it is robotic and missing any sort of personality. It is not a finished product yet, but the AI seems fairly impressive.
Mind Simulation works on artificial general intelligence for video games, business to business communication, and robotics. Using an engine called CyberMind, the laboratory is on a mission to make NPCs smart. Mind Simulation wants to improve NPCs to be able to have conversations without a necessary quest or information to provide.
Video games with interesting storylines usually have many characters with deep dialogue and social choices, which helps create different experiences within the game. Many video games are very successful because of the detailed lore of that video game world. Mind Simulation picked The Witcher for its trial run because it believes there is an amazing story and deep lore, but also because Mind Simulation felt it could use more intelligent dialogue and options to converse with NPCs more.
During the Geralt AI preview, the player asks a variety of questions to Geralt relating to The Witcher lore. Some of the questions are met with an intelligent response, while some are answered in a confusing jumble of words. Since Mind Simulation is a Russian company, it is important to note that the dialogue is in English while the action queues are in Russian. This can be a challenging roadblock to create an AI with the ability to understand and use proper grammar, especially if it is working with two different languages.
Mind Simulation's goal is to improve artificial intelligence in AI, but it seems to fall short of giving Geralt enough knowledge of The Witcher to make him seem real. The Witcher creators have spent many years developing personalities, relationships, and social dynamics for every character in the series in order to produce emotional responses from the players. Creating an AI that can hold that much fluid information is a huge challenge. The Geralt AI has massive potential, but as of now, can use many improvements in order to feel realistic.
According to the Mind Simulation website, this project was created by 12 AI experts and they will continue to improve upon the CyberMind engine to use for NPCs. Mind Simulation was most likely going to unveil this finished product at AI Everything Dubai 2020, but the event has been postponed due to COVID-19. The Geralt AI is still being worked on, so updates from Mind Simulation are expected as the project progresses.
Source: VG 24/7