ChatGPT Could Teach the Next Gran Turismo Sophy How to Race

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This is the discussion thread for an article on GTPlanet:

ChatGPT Could Teach the Next Gran Turismo Sophy How to Race​

GT Sophy taught itself to outrace the best Gran Turismo players in the world, and the achievement was significant enough to land on the cover of Nature in 2022. Now, new research from Sony AI suggests that the next leap for the technology might not just be faster or smarter racing agents, but ones whose behavior can be shaped by anyone willing to type a sentence...
 
This is mind-boggling! Even if still a couple of GT game generations out (the real-time implementation part through in-game prompt).

Although I could see some of this R&D being put into work for next gen Sophy in GT8, e.g. PD training and including in the game a set of different Sophy behaviours which could then mimic different AI driver characters or personalities as part of a career grid the player would be facing in different events.
 
Different AI personnalities that would be constant through out the game would be neat (irrespective of the way they come to this result).

But before that I'd like smarter AIs not the mix of fast rabbits + moving chicanes that brake on the apex while they are already much too slow that we have now. AIs that do not fight for a place as if it was the final lap while they are lapped and under blue flag. AIs that have awareness of cars around them, how many time AIs turned into me as if I was not there, without me dive-bombing or anything like that. AIs whose cars do not feel like freight-trains on rails.
 
  • Drive like Ayrton Senna
  • Drive like Nigel Mansell
  • Drive like Sir Lewis Hamilton
  • Drive like Sir Stirling Moss
  • Drive like Colin McRae
  • Drive like Tommi Mäkinen
  • Drive like Michéle Mouton
  • Drive like Jason Plato
  • Drive like Hans Stuck
  • Drive like Laurent Aiello
  • Drive like Scott McLaughlin
  • Drive like Shane Van Gisbergen
  • Drive like Peter Brock
  • Drive like Mark Donahue
  • Drive like Parnelli Jones
  • Drive like Dan Gurney
  • Drive like Tom Christensen
  • Drive like Masanori Sekiya
  • Drive like Kazuki Nakajima
  • Drive like Kamui Kobayashi
  • and please, please drive like Keiichi Tsuchiya :) :sly:
 
05XR8
  • Drive like Ayrton Senna
  • Drive like Nigel Mansell
  • Drive like Sir Lewis Hamilton
  • Drive like Sir Stirling Moss
  • Drive like Colin McRae
  • Drive like Tommi Mäkinen
  • Drive like Michéle Mouton
  • Drive like Jason Plato
  • Drive like Hans Stuck
  • Drive like Laurent Aiello
  • Drive like Scott McLaughlin
  • Drive like Shane Van Gisbergen
  • Drive like Peter Brock
  • Drive like Mark Donahue
  • Drive like Parnelli Jones
  • Drive like Dan Gurney
  • Drive like Tom Christensen
  • Drive like Masanori Sekiya
  • Drive like Kazuki Nakajima
  • Drive like Kamui Kobayashi
  • and please, please drive like Keiichi Tsuchiya :) :sly:
Click to expand...
DRIVE LIKE ME...
 
Once again, while the goal of better AI drivers is always a good thing, GT7's glaring problem remains ignored...

If the AI can produce an agent that DOES respect racing rules, surely it could be trained to recognize when the players DON'T..? And either hand out a penalty during the race or even after (if it can't yet do realtime).

Maybe an AI agent could review Sport Mode races, and implement a better Safety Rating system?

And, OF COURSE (before the 'gamers' all start losing their minds about the horror of being held to professional rules standards!) it should be an option in single player and hosted lobbies..!

But an AI agent assist in determining drivers' safety rating might curb some of the more aggressive tactics used by even high level drivers. It's still pretty immersion breaking to watch track behavior that wouldn't be tolerated in pro racing. Win or lose, if the race is stewarded by something that apparently DOES know the racing rules (and even better, adjusts them for different series' differing levels of tolerance for shenanigans!) and adjusts your safety rating accordingly, I think we'd see far less gamesmanship in Sport Mode and end up with a better system...
 
Fossilized
Once again, while the goal of better AI drivers is always a good thing, GT7's glaring problem remains ignored...

If the AI can produce an agent that DOES respect racing rules, surely it could be trained to recognize when the players DON'T..? And either hand out a penalty during the race or even after (if it can't yet do realtime).

Maybe an AI agent could review Sport Mode races, and implement a better Safety Rating system?

And, OF COURSE (before the 'gamers' all start losing their minds about the horror of being held to professional rules standards!) it should be an option in single player and hosted lobbies..!

But an AI agent assist in determining drivers' safety rating might curb some of the more aggressive tactics used by even high level drivers. It's still pretty immersion breaking to watch track behavior that wouldn't be tolerated in pro racing. Win or lose, if the race is stewarded by something that apparently DOES know the racing rules (and even better, adjusts them for different series' differing levels of tolerance for shenanigans!) and adjusts your safety rating accordingly, I think we'd see far less gamesmanship in Sport Mode and end up with a better system...
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Or just do what iRacing does and ditch fault assignment entirely. Contact with you and another car? Doesn't matter who initiated it; you both get 0x, 2x, or 4x penalty points. Off track? Spun? Doesn't matter how or why; you get 0x, 2x, or 4x. It's not perfect, but it mostly succeeds in separating out those who want to seriously compete, while the boneheads can make each other miserable in their dirty races
 
TeamCZRRacing
Or just do what iRacing does and ditch fault assignment entirely. Contact with you and another car? Doesn't matter who initiated it; you both get 0x, 2x, or 4x penalty points. Off track? Spun? Doesn't matter how or why; you get 0x, 2x, or 4x. It's not perfect, but it mostly succeeds in separating out those who want to seriously compete, while the boneheads can make each other miserable in their dirty races
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But that's not how it works IRL. My point was about the incredible efforts put into making the cars and the tracks as realistic as possible, but then next to nothing put into making the actual RACING realistic whatsoever.

I agree the iRacing's system works, but for starters there ARE real life reviews for extraordinary flagrant bad driving, and temporary bans handed out from time to time. No such thing with the arguably far more profitable GT games (we're #1, right?!).

But also, iRacing isn't really doing any AI research, this is a brand new concept in gaming, and PD/Sony seem interested in using it. I'm just suggesting an area for it to help garner some realism in stewarding rather than take iRacing's simplistic and unrealistic approach, even though it works to a degree in the top splits.

It seems that 100% of the effort atm is going towards better AI opponents as an acknowledgment that the vast majority of the player base isn't interested in online racing in the slightest. But I'd be prepared to bet that, if stewarding got a LOT better, a lot of the offline players would participate more if they knew some punter wouldn't get away with it...
 
StPeterMartyr
🤔Isn't asking questions about medicine the most dangerous thing to do? :confused:
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I meant professional medicine - doctors, etc. Turns out it's surprisingly good at helping with that kind of thing, when used and verified by medical professionals. Apparently I'm wrong about this, per Joey D's response below. So that means it's useless for everything!

I have a million and a half other things to say about ChatGPT, though. Very few of them are positive, and none of them are relevant to this thread, so let's maybe cut this out so we don't sidetrack the thread
 
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05XR8
  • Drive like Ayrton Senna
  • Drive like Nigel Mansell
  • Drive like Sir Lewis Hamilton
  • Drive like Sir Stirling Moss
  • Drive like Colin McRae
  • Drive like Tommi Mäkinen
  • Drive like Michéle Mouton
  • Drive like Jason Plato
  • Drive like Hans Stuck
  • Drive like Laurent Aiello
  • Drive like Scott McLaughlin
  • Drive like Shane Van Gisbergen
  • Drive like Peter Brock
  • Drive like Mark Donahue
  • Drive like Parnelli Jones
  • Drive like Dan Gurney
  • Drive like Tom Christensen
  • Drive like Masanori Sekiya
  • Drive like Kazuki Nakajima
  • Drive like Kamui Kobayashi
  • and please, please drive like Keiichi Tsuchiya :) :sly:
Click to expand...
Imagine some disgruntled PD employee typed this:

- All 20 AI cars drive like NIKITA MAZEPIN.
 
Blah, blah, blah, announce B-Spec return already PD :grumpy:

In all seriousness, I don't mind something like this; NASCAR Racing 2003 Season allowed you to adjust opponent rosters and change a driver's performance on various track types, as well as adjust their confidence and equipment performance. The current system in iRacing for AI opponents is similar, but lacks the precise tuning that their two-decades-old game had; there's only a single skill slider and their car performance is not taken into account.

Now did it actually make a difference? I don't know. I think so; way back when NASCAR only ran on two road courses, it wasn't unusual to have big teams bring a driver specifically for their road courses. Naturally, these drivers would be total crap on regular speedways but shine at the road courses and I think you'd see something like that if you adjusted their values properly.

The implication of this setup within Gran Turismo is pretty exciting; the ability to rise up the ranks with familiar names (akin to the way we all miss our beloved M. Rossi from the Forza games before they got obliterated by Drivatar) and learn their behaviours. The ability to race championships with persistent AI. Or, as jokingly referred to, the ability to create an AI based off a driver and their driving characteristics.

It's well understood by now that the regular AI in GT painfully needs an overhaul. It almost feels like Sophy is their development time-sink versus the actual game... how long until PD turns into a company focused on AI (because you know they damn well aren't right now if I keep getting punted off the racing line :lol:)
 
It all sounds so far away and theoretical, and even if it does, the pessimistic side of me thinks PD will neuter it with weird decisions and bugs like what we currently have in the Sophy Custom Races. Still, I'd love to see what people can come up with if this does indeed find its way into a GT game.

Imagine if we could have a race in Tokyo where 15 cars are driving under the speed limit and respecting laws, using their turn signsls, etc., while 5 or so racers go past 300km/h in a race against each other. Some civillians panic and swerve when they see fast cars approaching, some don't respond. Heck, I'd love to see an AI's interpretation of what someone learning stick shift drives like.

If we could somehow make the AI simulate, say, a 0.05% chance of a puncture or mechanical failire per lap and have to pit, that would make endurance racing so much more dynamic and more like the real thing. As things are right now, the fastest car just pulls away unless there's a huge discrepancy in tyre and fuel efficiency, and players are incentivised to bring the fastest car available.

Or we could just make one AI a salty noob that drives backwards after they wipe out, turning the race into survival horror :lol:
 
XSquareStickIt
It all sounds so far away and theoretical, and even if it does, the pessimistic side of me thinks PD will neuter it with weird decisions and bugs like what we currently have in the Sophy Custom Races. Still, I'd love to see what people can come up with if this does indeed find its way into a GT game.

Imagine if we could have a race in Tokyo where 15 cars are driving under the speed limit and respecting laws, using their turn signals, etc., while 5 or so racers go past 300km/h in a race against each other. Some civillians panic and swerve when they see fast cars approaching, some don't respond. Heck, I'd love to see an AI's interpretation of what someone learning stick shift drives like.

If we could somehow make the AI simulate, say, a 0.05% chance of a puncture or mechanical failire per lap and have to pit, that would make endurance racing so much more dynamic and more like the real thing. As things are right now, the fastest car just pulls away unless there's a huge discrepancy in tyre and fuel efficiency, and players are incentivised to bring the fastest car available.

Or we could just make one AI a salty noob that drives backwards after they wipe out, turning the race into survival horror :lol:
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I’ll bring it up again.
05XR8
Nah, what these cars(R33, FD, A80) are doing, we can’t do alone.


If that’s just showcasing multiplayer with AI traffic(regardless of the slow cars as traffic for this clip), cool. If it’s linking cars together by cruising(a la Forza), that’s something that may be in a future update.
Click to expand...

I even said this a couple years ago:
Maybe PD will add tandem drift SOPHY. ;)
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Seriously, there are many things PD could be working on with SOPHY. None of it is farfetched.
 
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Hey Sophy
images - 2026-04-26T100421.431.webp
 
XSquareStickIt
It all sounds so far away and theoretical, and even if it does, the pessimistic side of me thinks PD will neuter it with weird decisions and bugs like what we currently have in the Sophy Custom Races. Still, I'd love to see what people can come up with if this does indeed find its way into a GT game.
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Not theoretical at all. I'm working on a similar system. Each driver can be given a directive and a target (their rivals in the race). Their pace, and whether they take risks or not, become based on the current context. Now, I find it works best when there is a season to draw from rather than a single race, but either way it's legit. Will they implement it for GT8? I can't say. Is it possible? Yep, 100%.

I know, everyone is thinking, "how can they do this since the AI sucks now". Super easy, barely an inconvenience - Sophy is already set up to run at an extreme pace relative to the player (see the custom race threads). You tap into that system and rather than having the field follow a strict progression from first to last (fastest to slowest) you assign pace based on the scenario. Rather than the race revolving around you, each NPC has their own directive. These behaviours can be assigned individually up and down the field. This is WAY better than 1 player vs 19 NPC, because then it becomes a real race.

Anyway, the point is, it's 100% possible. If anyone wants to see it in GT8, then maybe someone with a connection can hook me up with them.
 
art3mis
If clankers train GT it's the last time I play GT. AI is and will continue to ruin the planet, brains, and everything else it touches.
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The biggest problem isn't even the tool itself, but its indiscriminate use, which is even draining hardware resources, making devices more expensive and deteriorating the minds of many, as you said.
But if it were only used to make a better gaming experience, it would be good, because I'm loving the power pack.
 
AI is a tool and it's better or worse depending on how you use it.

ChatGPT/Gemini/Claude/whatever output not being good is sometimes due to the prompt. It's trained to fill the gaps, but you can't expect to prompt in simple language and get consistent results.
 
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TeamCZRRacing
I meant professional medicine - doctors, etc. Turns out it's surprisingly good at helping with that kind of thing, when used and verified by medical professionals.

I have a million and a half other things to say about ChatGPT, though. Very few of them are positive, and none of them are relevant to this thread, so let's maybe cut this out so we don't sidetrack the thread
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As someone who works with AI in the medical profession, I would never trust any medical professional who relies on AI to do anything. It's impossibly bad when it comes to medical anything and often just makes up symptoms and diagnoses. Never mind that most AI has zero HIPAA compliance and often ships your medical information to some low-security server in China. We barely allow it for certain circumstances where I work because it's a security nightmare.

Leave AI to do unimportant things. Creating driver profiles is fine because, if it goes off the rails, no one ends up dead.
 
Joey D
As someone who works with AI in the medical profession, I would never trust any medical professional who relies on AI to do anything. It's impossibly bad when it comes to medical anything and often just makes up symptoms and diagnoses. Never mind that most AI has zero HIPAA compliance and often ships your medical information to some low-security server in China. We barely allow it for certain circumstances where I work because it's a security nightmare.

Leave AI to do unimportant things. Creating driver profiles is fine because, if it goes off the rails, no one ends up dead.
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For sure. Analytical AI can be very useful. A program to sift through X-Rays and find patterns for potential early diagnostics is amazing.
Generative AI is horrific and there's no way to make it not be.
 
This sounds good to me. Like every other piece of tool it can be helpful or harmful. In this case if eliminate the chase the rabbit then I am all for it
 

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