AI vs. Alien

  • Thread starter Krypton78
  • 62 comments
  • 4,767 views
Desire to go faster and improve is definitely a part of being a great driver. Taking the time to practice instead of just "playing" is something a lot of people aren't really interested in, so they will plateau below what they could achieve. For pretty much everyone, there are outside factors (work, school, family, friends, etc.) that limit how much we can devote to GT Sport.

To be an Alien, I have no doubt that there is a natural talent component as well. Even if you gave everyone the best equipment and unlimited time to practice, there will always be a small percentage that are better than everyone else. Anything this competitive will have some resemblance to a bell curve. It may not be very motivational to say this, but the truth is not everyone can be a Hamilton or Vettel.

Personally, I'm not ever going to win any prizes for playing GT Sport, but that's ok. I'm having fun and I still have room to improve and that's exciting. Regarding AI, bring it on. As far as I know, there is no AI in existence today that can beat me at GT Sport and I'm not even close to the Aliens!
True, natural talent will always be a factor. But that's why going up to the level of those Aliens with pure hard work is one if the most rewarding things you can ever feel! :D
Oh btw, I think you're an alien :P
 
Sorry for the slight off topic but kind of similar. Especially when I comes to my 'bot-like' driving.:lol:

Can Joe Public beat an alien with enough practice or is there an innate skill level that stops you from reaching the same pace?

I think the whole alien cult thing is largely based on cars that understeer, are forgiving, and prevent you from overstepping the mark on entry, so in that regard, if someone is prepared to put in the hours, then they could get to within a second in time trials if they are determined enough.

I think the GT community needs to reassess what really is exceptional driving, and until driving conditions really do require Schumacher-like driving skills which can't be practiced, then we really won't know if the 'aliens' really do have alien like abilities.
 
I think the whole alien cult thing is largely based on cars that understeer, are forgiving, and prevent you from overstepping the mark on entry, so in that regard, if someone is prepared to put in the hours, then they could get to within a second in time trials if they are determined enough.

I think the GT community needs to reassess what really is exceptional driving, and until driving conditions really do require Schumacher-like driving skills which can't be practiced, then we really won't know if the 'aliens' really do have alien like abilities.
Playing devil's advocate a bit..... How many people do you think had the opportunities that Schumacher/Hamilton/Vettel did from such a young age? Compare that number to the number of people that have the opportunity of playing GT Sport.

F1 success is largely dependent on the car. Currently in F1, there are only 3 teams with a car arguably capable of winning the championship. F1 has been like that or even less competitive pretty much throughout it's history. In GT Sport, everyone has the chance to use the same cars. However, there's a small group of drivers in each region that are consistently fighting for the season title.

Statistically, I think a solid case can be made that the Aliens are better at GT Sport than the real drivers are in their sport.
 
Playing devil's advocate a bit..... How many people do you think had the opportunities that Schumacher/Hamilton/Vettel did from such a young age? Compare that number to the number of people that have the opportunity of playing GT Sport.

F1 success is largely dependent on the car. Currently in F1, there are only 3 teams with a car arguably capable of winning the championship. F1 has been like that or even less competitive pretty much throughout it's history. In GT Sport, everyone has the chance to use the same cars. However, there's a small group of drivers in each region that are consistently fighting for the season title.

Statistically, I think a solid case can be made that the Aliens are better at GT Sport than the real drivers are in their sport.

A little off-topic, but I 100% agree. You pointed it exactly out.

There are even some young drivers in the F1 or F3, because daddy is rich and supported them since youngest childhood.

I'm still sure, everyone in the F1 or F3 grid would reach 75k without problems, but for sure not all of them has far the kind of magic of the very top aliens in GTS, like @TRL LIGHTNING for example (@ other aliens, I mentioned him because he currently leads the FIA, I know there are several others of you equal to him :) )
 
Playing devil's advocate a bit..... How many people do you think had the opportunities that Schumacher/Hamilton/Vettel did from such a young age?

Statistically, I think a solid case can be made that the Aliens are better at GT Sport than the real drivers are in their sport.

Particularly Schumacher's and Hamilton's raw speed and rise through the ranks should have been no surprise because they found it easy to drive on the ragged edge, and this ability is only amplified with cars that have very good cornering power and aren't limited by mid corner grip; anything from a kart through to an F1 car. If they had of pursued saloons in some form, then we wouldn't be celebrating how brilliant they are. Look at Juan Pablo Montoya, a brilliant and gifted driver on his day in single seaters was mediocre in those big heavy stock cars. Schuey probably knew damn well he wouldn't have an advantage in saloon cars, so stayed away to preserve his reputation after F1.

You make the case that aliens are better than the real drivers....F1, Indycar, WEC or BlancpainGT? You have to remember that conditions for practice and the races are perfect in GTS, and with cars that are forgiving and understeer. It's those drivers like Schumacher or Hamilton who can set the car up closer to the limit to get the speed but is less than perfect and wants to snap into oversteer here and there, but they deliver the lap times off the cuff by taking some risk and having the ability to stop the car from flying off the road when they have assumed too much.
 
Within the game the AI can be programmed to do anything the programmers want it to do and at whatever level or speed.

As the AI is nothing but 1's and 0's there are no limitations as to grip level, weight or actual horsepower or torque to contend with.

There are no rules for the devs stating that the AI has to be programmed to work within the same parameters or limits that the alien human players control inputs have to operate within so yes the AI within game could easily be programmed to outperform any human player as the playing field does not have to be level.

Even today in manufacturing things such as electronics there is a reason besides cost that robotics are employed to produce boards and that is repeatability of very close tolerances of a greater percentage than available with human workers performing the same production sequences.

You can see a small glimpse of this programming flexibility and ability on some of the challenges against the AI on the last laps and to the increase in speed and decrease of the lap times the AI exhibits to make the human player work for the win.

It would be just as easy to make the AI impossible to beat by those same human players just by changing a few 1's and 0's in the programming string.

Not in the games interest to do so.

I would like to see a in game slider that would allow tweaking the AI performance higher for increased playabilty in some scenarios though.
 
Within the game the AI can be programmed to do anything the programmers want it to do and at whatever level or speed.

As the AI is nothing but 1's and 0's there are no limitations as to grip level, weight or actual horsepower or torque to contend with.

There are no rules for the devs stating that the AI has to be programmed to work within the same parameters or limits that the alien human players control inputs have to operate within so yes the AI within game could easily be programmed to outperform any human player as the playing field does not have to be level.

Even today in manufacturing things such as electronics there is a reason besides cost that robotics are employed to produce boards and that is repeatability of very close tolerances of a greater percentage than available with human workers performing the same production sequences.

You can see a small glimpse of this programming flexibility and ability on some of the challenges against the AI on the last laps and to the increase in speed and decrease of the lap times the AI exhibits to make the human player work for the win.

It would be just as easy to make the AI impossible to beat by those same human players just by changing a few 1's and 0's in the programming string.

Not in the games interest to do so.

I would like to see a in game slider that would allow tweaking the AI performance higher for increased playabilty in some scenarios though.
I didn't think of it this way :lol:
It'd be technically cheating, I think, but it works ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
And it's not like the AI we have right now isn't already cheating ;)
 
Particularly Schumacher's and Hamilton's raw speed and rise through the ranks should have been no surprise because they found it easy to drive on the ragged edge, and this ability is only amplified with cars that have very good cornering power and aren't limited by mid corner grip; anything from a kart through to an F1 car. If they had of pursued saloons in some form, then we wouldn't be celebrating how brilliant they are. Look at Juan Pablo Montoya, a brilliant and gifted driver on his day in single seaters was mediocre in those big heavy stock cars. Schuey probably knew damn well he wouldn't have an advantage in saloon cars, so stayed away to preserve his reputation after F1.

You make the case that aliens are better than the real drivers....F1, Indycar, WEC or BlancpainGT? You have to remember that conditions for practice and the races are perfect in GTS, and with cars that are forgiving and understeer. It's those drivers like Schumacher or Hamilton who can set the car up closer to the limit to get the speed but is less than perfect and wants to snap into oversteer here and there, but they deliver the lap times off the cuff by taking some risk and having the ability to stop the car from flying off the road when they have assumed too much.
I know we're getting off topic, so apologies, but this is a fun digression.

You do make some rather large assumptions about Hamilton and Schumacher outside of single seaters. Montoya was a good driver, but not even close to Hamilton and Schumacher, so that argument falls a bit flat in my view.

In any competition, you will have a small group that is better than the rest. So my point is that greatness, statistically, depends on the number of competitors. Suppose there was a race series with only two drivers and one driver fairly consistently beat the other. Not really impressive. GT Sport's FIA championship has literally thousands of players, so very impressive for that small group of Aliens to consistently beat the masses. Has there ever been a single race series (real or virtual) with more participants?
 
In a one-lap hotlap situation in a very specific car in a very specific track, then yes AI will win, since a programmer can program the exact parameters of that AI in that very specific situation, or use machine learning to achieve the same effect.
I think even then an Alien has a VERY good chance of beating it; all they have to do is get the nose down the inside somewhere and what's the AI going to do then? You can't program every possible way another car could make you have to change your line for every possible moment of the race, for every possible way that race has gone so far - as soon as someone starts racing it it's lost, IMO, at this moment in time.
 
I think even then an Alien has a VERY good chance of beating it; all they have to do is get the nose down the inside somewhere and what's the AI going to do then? You can't program every possible way another car could make you have to change your line for every possible moment of the race, for every possible way that race has gone so far - as soon as someone starts racing it it's lost, IMO, at this moment in time.
Oh, I'm not even considering that an Alien's on the same track there! I'm just talking about pure lap times :)
 
all they have to do is get the nose down the inside somewhere and what's the AI going to do then?

The Alien will only get the chance to get the "nose down the inside somewhere" IF the programmers of the AI allow it.

Otherwise the AI will just always drive the perfect line, brake just a bit later and accelerate just but a bit quicker than what the games programmers allow the Alien to do and maintain control and not crash.

Hard to beat something when the programmers have the control of whats allowed on both sides of the ball. Nobody ever said the playing field allowed fair or even play.
 
And you really think that the programmers cannot control that aspect of the programming?:lol:
So you're saying in this hypothetical race between AI and human, the programmers are going out of their way to handicap one of the racers? Doesn't sound like a fair race. So ok, in an unfair race where programmers could just add -gripmultiplier*10 to the AI driver, and -Noslipstream -drag*10 to the human driver, sure, the AI wins.
 
The Alien will only get the chance to get the "nose down the inside somewhere" IF the programmers of the AI allow it.

Otherwise the AI will just always drive the perfect line, brake just a bit later and accelerate just but a bit quicker than what the games programmers allow the Alien to do and maintain control and not crash.

Hard to beat something when the programmers have the control of whats allowed on both sides of the ball. Nobody ever said the playing field allowed fair or even play.
I was about to argue at how an Alien can take the proper lines, but then I remembered that the programmers can make the playing field uneven :lol:
An Alien can make a counter-play on that, then. The Alien goes down the inside at the last moment before the corner, the AI blocks the Alien, and then the Alien suddenly goes back to the outside to get the optimal line. The AI now suddenly has a very poor line coming into the corner, and has only 2 options: defend the inside line on the exit anticipating for a cutback maneuver, or go to the outside and follow the normal racing line to salvage whatever speed it has going into the next turn.
Now that the AI has only 2 options, the Alien can now make another counter-play depending on what the AI chose:
1. If the AI went to defend the inside in anticipation of a cutback, the Alien can go to the outside of the AI, where they will certainly acheive an overlap but not necessarily an overtake, and force it very narrow on the edge of the track, severly compromising its line into the next corner whether the AI is on the inside or outside in the context of the next corner
2. If the AI went for the outside, the Alien can just do the cutback straightforward
 
You make the case that aliens are better than the real drivers

I was more talking about potential. It's obvious, that for a talentet but now about 20 years old sim driver that its to late to put him into a formular cockpit, because he just lacks of about 15 years real racing experience. Of course in real car racing there are components which are only there.

But I'm pretty sure, if somebody would've discovered people like @TRL LIGHTNING, @Fuvaros or @ORMA_Snow as a child, the chances that they would've become top drivers are pretty high, at least way more higher than by an average person.

Because this guys and other very top sim drivers show the main attributes: superior reflexes and an outway feeling for controlling the car. And this regardless of missing of the main information source at driving: the feeling of the centrifugal and other forces, or the feeling of the grip loss from tyres. You have only the visual information and a little FFB, and thats it.

There are no rules for the devs stating that the AI has to be programmed to work within the same parameters or limits that the alien human players control inputs have to operate within so yes the AI within game could easily be programmed to outperform any human player as the playing field does not have to be level.

I see, there was a misunderstandig. When I opened this thread, I meant without cheating. That means, the AI- Driver has the same conditions like us. He has no better grip or motor power or so, he is under the same circumstances. That means he knows his position and speed, and has only the possibility to steer, throttle and brake, nothing more.
The task is, he has to evaluate the right line, gripp loss, track limits and also react to the behaviour of the car and regulate all this due to minimize lap time.

Of course, if the programers would be allowed to manipulate the conditions, the AI would probably be litteraly a millions times faster.
 
Well, Assetto Corsa AI on PC at 100% setting can be quite challenging in terms of raw pace, yet with the same car, you can still go from last to first - but it will take much longer than in GTS. Also, that's basically all they can do, throw something unexpected at it and it doesn't know what to do.

I think in GTS, it would be possible to make a really fast AI as there are much less factors involved than in AC, but that's without taking into account hardware restrictions. Any simulation program will put a lot of stress on the CPU, so on current gen, it seems hard to add more complexity into it. I still think the slowness od GTS' AI is partly a design choice. I remember it being more challenging in GT1 and 2.
 
Last edited:
Question: Wouldn't the AI have to respond to the same stimuli as the Alien for this to even be an argument?

Driving is reactionary based on our senses (visual, auditory, etc.) I don't think we can call it driving unless the AI is doing this also.

Thats the point. He has to drive with regulating and reacting and learning from it. If he would be feeded and programmed to deal with parameters like the friction constant of the tyre <-> asphalt, or the exact mathematical connection of throttle <-> enginge power output, he could simply (if programed) calculate the perfect line, braking points, dose of steering and accomplish the perfect lap.

Maybe I should have gone more into detail at the opener post, I see
 
Do you think its possible for the AI to beat the Aliens?
Even without actually cheating the programmers can take advantage of all optimum conditions, exact maximum acceleration levels and zones along with the same for braking to the absolute maximums that the digital conditions allow for to perfection each and every lap with out making a mistake.

After all it is the programmers that designed the game and the limitations that the Alien gamer is competing against.

Also if we are talking about AI racing Alien humans the game would need to only concentrate its resources on 1 car rather than 19.

While the Aliens show the higher levels of their abilities against human opponents easily in most cases the difference against say a 20 lap race at Suzuka is that although good can the Alien hit every absolute limit of acceleration and braking and optimum line on every corner, and every section of track with no variance even in tenths of a second for 20 laps straight?

I bet the AI can be programmed to do so, hard to beat absolute mistake free racing from the green to the checkered flag.

Anytime you are programming a situation as the programmer you would have the upper hand.

We are not at a point in console gaming of having an AI that is actually learning its trade by the mistakes it makes, the console lacks the resources to even do rain without drastically affecting frame rates do you really think the resources are available for a learning AI on the console?
 
Maybe this also comes down to definitions.

By my definition, AI can't be built into the game. It has to be a separate program built without the in game code and using the same input of steering, throttle and shifting that humans use.

In real racing, there is no such thing as a "perfect" lap. There are too many factors to isolate and even lap to lap, there are differences in conditions. So that brings up the question of GT Sport being a good enough simulation to eliminate the possibility of a "perfect" lap.
 
Even without actually cheating the programmers can take advantage of all optimum conditions, exact maximum acceleration levels and zones along with the same for braking to the absolute maximums that the digital conditions allow for to perfection each and every lap with out making a mistake.

After all it is the programmers that designed the game and the limitations that the Alien gamer is competing against.

Also if we are talking about AI racing Alien humans the game would need to only concentrate its resources on 1 car rather than 19.

While the Aliens show the higher levels of their abilities against human opponents easily in most cases the difference against say a 20 lap race at Suzuka is that although good can the Alien hit every absolute limit of acceleration and braking and optimum line on every corner, and every section of track with no variance even in tenths of a second for 20 laps straight?

I bet the AI can be programmed to do so, hard to beat absolute mistake free racing from the green to the checkered flag.

Anytime you are programming a situation as the programmer you would have the upper hand.

We are not at a point in console gaming of having an AI that is actually learning its trade by the mistakes it makes, the console lacks the resources to even do rain without drastically affecting frame rates do you really think the resources are available for a learning AI on the console?
Like Apex said earlier though, throwing a wrench into that perfect optimal line will cause the AI to at the very least compromise their line. With a good enough Alien, they will know just exactly how the AI will compromise their line based on what will be the most efficient way to do it, and then make a counter-play to the AI's decision. I've always had this mini-motto I stand by when racing against people I know are much faster than me, and I think it reflects quite nicely here: If you can't go to their level, then bring them down to your level ;)
 
I've always had this mini-motto I stand by when racing against people I know are much faster than me, and I think it reflects quite nicely here: If you can't go to their level, then bring them down to your level

The problem would be most human opponents succumb to the effects of being pressed or pressured which in many cases can result in their making even small mistakes or over driving the cars limits even if just a bit that cost precious 10'ths of seconds.

AI would not be subjected to feeling the same effects of those pressures but instead would continue to just lay down optimal laps and whether ahead or behind would not affect that purpose.

Again against a human that pressure may eventually affect the opponent into leaving an opening, not gonna happen against the machine that just functions off of programmed 1's and 0's.

Teaching AI to learn may not be in our best interest! Remember Skynet!:gtpflag:
 
The problem would be most human opponents succumb to the effects of being pressed or pressured which in many cases can result in their making even small mistakes or over driving the cars limits even if just a bit that cost precious 10'ths of seconds.

AI would not be subjected to feeling the same effects of those pressures but instead would continue to just lay down optimal laps and whether ahead or behind would not affect that purpose.

Again against a human that pressure may eventually affect the opponent into leaving an opening, not gonna happen against the machine that just functions off of programmed 1's and 0's.

Teaching AI to learn may not be in our best interest! Remember Skynet!:gtpflag:
Haha fair point :D

Lemme tell ya something scary; most of the internet's inner workings aren't comprehensible by the programmers because the self-learning AI uses gibberish to talk to one another. We may already have Skynet :scared:
 
Teaching AI to learn may not be in our best interest! Remember Skynet!

:lol: 👍

Good point! But perhaps its almost to late and we're just not aware of it. Since the softwares theirselfes do trade in the stock markets on their own...
 
The AI could theoretically do a frame by frame run and get a perfect lap on the fly . If the AI can do future 320 frames of calculations in a millisecond that's 6 unique scenarios it can test then choose for the next frame , obviously modern hardware can do billions of calculations on the fly . I'm guessing they can realistically program an AI to do a " future view " frame assisted run by 1-2 million frames which would easily be 5 seconds of perfect driving given the possibilities . Introducing the player would be a wild card but you could always factor that in too .
 
Back