Gran Turismo Sophy is an artificial intelligence agent trained using a novel deep reinforcement learning platform developed in collaboration between Sony AI, Polyphony Digital, and Sony Interactive Entertainment. Each group contributed to the success of the project by bringing together expertise in fundamental artificial intelligence research and development, a hyper-realistic real-world racing simulator, and infrastructure for massive-scale artificial intelligence training. Sony AI spoke about what makes Gran Turismo Sophy a unique AI Challenge: The AI is trained to master skills surrounding race car control, racing tactics, and racing etiquette to bring competition skills on par to human players at the level of the world’s best championship levels. According to Sony AI, the agent has a deep understanding of car dynamics, racing lines, and precision maneuvers to conquer challenging tracks. That turns racing into a complex back and forth between opponents including defend and pretend behaviors as well as pushing the limits on the racing lines, braking and acceleration points. […] All these things together distinguish Gran Turismo Sophy from earlier AI agents in chess, shogi, Go and other AI breakthroughs such as AlphaStar and OpenAI Five. A video announcement from Sony Group Corporation President and CEO Kenichiro Yoshida can be seen below:
You can read more about the Gran Turismo Sophy AI through the Sony AI blog, Sony Interactive Entertainment blog, or the Polyphony Digital blog. There’s currently no word about when this AI will be implemented in the Gran Turismo games, but it’s easy to assume that it will be introduced after the launch of Gran Turismo 7. Gran Turismo 7 will launch on PlayStation 4 and 5 on March 4.
