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Ubisoft let me actually speak with its new AI-powered NPCs

One tried to convince me to join the resistance.

For the past three months, ever since I spoke to the AI NPCs in Nvidia’s cyberpunk ramen shop, I’ve been wondering: Which game developer will take a flying leap on this controversial and intriguing tech? That’s probably for the best, because while the company is trying to suggest it’s made small breakthroughs in “real-time emotion and animation,” “contextual awareness,” and “collaborative decision-making,” the demo really didn’t take me much further than Nvidia’s somewhat awkward cyberpunk ramen shop did. But if you ask me, the most important advancement was simply that Ubisoft gave me an actual reason to talk to these chatbots, with in-game objectives like “Learn more about the megacorps” and “Find out more about Bloom’s past.” I didn’t need to come up with improv prompts all on my own.

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