Artificial intelligence in gaming is nothing new. GPU manufacturers like NVIDIA and AMD have been using machine learning to upscale visuals in recent years, even generating additional frames so that hardware is less reliant on brute force. The PlayStation 5 Pro does similarly. Earlier this week, we also learned Sony is testing AI-powered characters.
Microsoft is taking a slightly different tact with its new Copilot featurest.
Revealed yesterday, March 13, on the Official Xbox Podcast (which you can watch below) Xbox has announced "Copilot for Gaming", dubbing it an AI sidekick of sorts.
Fatima Kardar, Corporate VP of Gaming AI, and Jason Ronald, Vice President of Xbox Gaming Devices are pretty excited about it, but is it really what we need?
Here's the positive
The idea is genuinely impressive, since it'll tie in with Xbox consoles and the wider AI ecosystem. You can, for example, ask Copilot to download a game you didn't finish and have it explain where you were at.
It can even poke fun at your misplays (if that's what you want) and recommend new games to try – or help tailor games you are playing to your own personal tastes, like suggesting a car type in Forza that it thinks you'll appreciate.
As with anything involving AI, though, there are serious ethical concerns.
The good stuff
One of the bigger features shown in the proof of concept is the inclusion of AI strategy guides, where Copilot can go and find you a way to defeat a tricky boss or complete a puzzle.
That's all well and good, but as the tendrils of AI reach out, there may not be anything left for it to source from.
As the tendrils of AI reach out, there may not be anything left for it to source from.
You see, in recent years, games media (that's news, reviews, features, and guides) has been through the mill. Google's aggressive push for AI overviews that source from content while taking away from outlets that produce those articles in the first place has led to huge layoffs, and even closures of promising outlets.
I know this because this shift cost me my job. I've seen firsthand hard-working folks who write guides for a living (which requires no small amount of talent, by the way) swept away by AI-written, cheap imitations full of inaccuracy.
How will Copilot recommend a strategy guide for, say, Forza Horizon 5 when Copilot itself hasn't played the game, and is essentially pulling from sources that, in many cases, haven't played the game either?
These are bigger questions than I'm able to answer here but as I see it, it's yet another ethical conundrum for generative AI, and it'll be interesting how Microsoft (and gamers) reckon with that.
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