Featured AI: Inworld.ai
February's featured cool, ethical use of AI is Inworld,ai, a company that develops agentic AI for video games.
Well, it didn't take long for me to miss a week. Sorry about that! I've learned two important lessons: Even if I maintained a habit for 6 months, it takes effort to rebuild it. I've also learned that it is not the best idea to wait until Sunday to write and publish that's my recovery day, and my motivation is low. I will be experimenting with my publication days to determine what works for my readers, so expect some changes in the coming days and weeks.
One of the things I wanted to do differently was to be less of a doom-and-gloom blog and start covering cool ethical* uses of AI. I'm excited to start this trend this week, where I spotlight Inworld.AI and their agentic AI for NPC dialog in video games.
I'm an avid gamer. Specifically, I play a lot of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs), like World of Warcraft. I love playing games without "winning" scenarios, and I enjoy the community aspects of virtual worlds. But virtual worlds can't only be populated by other human players, the game needs NPCs who provide information, send you on quests, and sell items to make the world feel real and lived in. Those are called Non-Player Characters, or NPCs for short.
The persistent challenge with NPCs is their repetitive dialogue. NPCs say the same things, from a predefined set of responses. For decades, interacting with an NPC involved clicking on it and selecting from a list of predefined interactions. That's remained unchanged for 40 years, give or take, until now.
Thanks to genAI, and a company called Inworld.ai, that's starting to change. Inworld.ai offers agentic AI solutions that enable gamers to have more natural conversations with NPCs, deepening and enhancing game immersion.
Inworld describes several potential uses of agentic AI such as creating unique companions to accompany players in single-player games, and simulating human tactics in single-player games to make it seem like you are playing with people, but without the potential for extreme bigotry and extremism recruiting. Beyond individual NPCs, Inworld says their agentic AI can be adapted to create dynamic environments that respond to the player journey in many different ways such as helping the player through the narrative by creating on-the-fly cues or adjusting difficulty.
Why is this a cool use of AI?
Any gamer will tell you that hearing the same phrase a thousand times gets old. The opportunity to have a real conversation with NPCs, beyond the typical pre-defined list of interactions is really exciting. Beyond individual interactions, a gaming world that responds to you and your unique experience in the game opens up whole new worlds of possibilities that we haven't seen in gaming before.
As a lifelong gamer, I've been excited about the potential for genAI within video games since ChatGPT exploded into public awareness. I'm a little disappointed at the slow adoption of these technologies into games, but given how expensive genAI development can be, I'm not necessarily surprised. I am very excited about the potential that genAI offers for gaming.
Bonus. Content: If you google the phrase, "But then I took an arrow in the knee," you'll see the most iconic and meme'd NPC phrases ever. It's from the game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, and over a decade later, it's still seared into my mind.
* Ethical Disclaimer: There are two pieces to this disclaimer: First, I define “ethical use of AI” as one that doesn’t materially harm any group of people and solves a problem that we can’t realistically solve using traditional means.
Second, this article isn’t sponsored. Inworld.AI doesn’t have any input on the content of this article, I’m receiving no compensation for this article, and Inworld.AI isn’t aware that I’m writing this ahead of its publication.
This is just me geeking out about a cool thing I found.
Do you have a cool, ethical use of AI you want me to feature? Let me know - drop a comment or send me a message!