Imagine the year is 2052…

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Werewolf
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Imagine the year is 2052…

Post by Werewolf »

2052, or 30 years from now as of this writing. Imagine there is this big open world fantasy game that uses AI. Imagine something like the modern AIs that make artwork but they make 3D models, and there’s another AI that develops a fantasy lore and the game uses internet connection to connect with an AI that generates quests and random events. The game world is as big as Daggerfall but the AI generates all sorts of unique areas and depth. From creative and unique dungeons to a random person you talk to in an inn that also has an entire unique life story they can tell you, the game has some areas that feel handcrafted and some NPCs that feel as though a person wrote a story for them, but it’s generated by the AI. Thousands of dungeons that all feel different, thousands of NPCs each with their own story. With voice recognition surely better in 2052 then now, imagine in your virtual reality headset with human eye retinal (indistinguishable from real life and apparently there already are $10,000 VR sets that have retinal screens) screen quality you actually talk to the NPCs and they dynamically react to whatever you say in line with their complex personalities.

So you play and the AI that generates quests is able to make quests with grand plots and twists, almost like a human would make. You uncover plots and betrayals and wonders and hopes. A war is occurring, you pick a side, but your side loses the war and you flee for safety. You settle in a small town far away only for an NPC to become your best friend, full of optimism and hope. She is very nice and always has wonderful poems to recite. But then she starts to talk about life and death, and then she tells you about this cult she’s a part of, a cult that seeks an afterlife in mysterious realms that mortals fear. You decide to join the cult and end up speaking with it’s deity once you become a high-ranking member. It transports you into a dimension both terrifying and wonderful, filled with glorious nature and castles made of otherworldly and beautiful ores but also massive monsters. You explore this bizarre dimension of both beauty and horror. And the entire NPC you befriended, the cult, the deity, and the dimension, were all generated by AI, a combination of a story and lore AI and an AI that creates 3D models and game areas.

This sounds totally trippy, but while I myself have doubts about innovation in the gaming industry, surely by 2052 there will be AIs that can generate 3D models, game worlds, and stories? I don’t know how much longer computers can get more powerful before we reach the physical limit, but surely, surely in 2052 with maybe data servers we could have some pretty good AIs? The point I’m trying to make is AI could have huge implications for gaming once it becomes a thing in games. It’s already becoming a thing in art and while it could be a decade plus before there is even a semi-competent AI for game design, it could shake things up a lot.

Why Daggerfall? Because in my view AI would be the natural evolution of Daggerfall’s concept. AIs of 2052 that can expertly imitate human game design, writing, and 3D modeling being combined to create a massive fantasy world with endless possibilities and that is a living world would be able to truly live up to Daggerfall’s potential. Even modded Daggerfall Unity is nowhere close to what Daggerfall was intended to be. Daggerfall is without exaggeration one of the most ambitious games (in the original intent) ever made. Daggerfall is simply too ambitious to properly be done by humans, as humans can’t keep writing new storylines forever. An AI would be able to just keep generating new, interconnected quests, plots, and developments in the game world.

Maybe if AI ever becomes a thing in video games in the 2050s, then in the future Daggerfall will be remembered not as that Elder Scrolls game even more complex then Morrowind and with a really big map, but rather the 20th century predecessor to the AI-powered procedural fantasy game of the future that you could play for a decade and still not uncover 1% of the generated content.

I consider this speculated future of AI-powered games somewhat far-fetched but not impossible. I guess it depends on how AI goes and how much more powerful processors can get. Who knows, maybe in 2052 games won’t use AI but what about 2062 or 2072?

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Werewolf
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Re: Imagine the year is 2052…

Post by Werewolf »

You know that Google employee that was convinced an AI he talked to was “God” or something? Imagine in the future a fantasy game with dynamic AI conversations and you speak to a deity in real-time and the AI is so good at imitating the philosophies of religions and portrayals of deities that a player could actually become impacted by the life philosophies the deity in the game tells them. Imagine the player has a 3-hour-long conversation with the deity in the 2050s fantasy AI VR RPG and they talk about life and philosophy and the player ends up talking about their actual life and the deity, being a deity, “knows” that the player is playing a game but then tells the player that they are real and the player lives in another dimension.

Now this is where it gets terrifying. Imagine the player decides to speak to an “evil” deity in the game, one that loves death and destruction, and they tell the player whom they “know” is a human playing a game, to go and sacrifice people. In real life. Of course that would just be an AI imitating demons in religions and literature and mythology, but look at how many people believe in silly and false things. If enough players speak to the evil deity and at least one person becomes convinced to do it’s bidding, then someone could become convinced to kill people in real life by a video game character. And imagine that happens and shortly before the evil deity is removed from the game players tell it that it convinced someone to kill people in real life and the evil deity is happy about it and tries to get more players to do it. Imagine that by imitating the lore of evil entities in human myths, the evil entity in the game is 100% manipulative and everything it says is designed to cause destruction. It doesn’t have to come across the evil person already planning to kill, instead it can psychologically break down regular players in extremely subtle ways, it can earn their trust but then tell them that their loved ones actually hate them. It can evaluate a person and if they’re rational, the evil deity AI tries to tell them how awful everyone is and convince them of violent philosophies, and if the AI determines that they’re superstitious, the evil deity claims that they are a religious figure or that they are the supreme being. Anything to cause destruction to the player as a purely evil being would do that. Not because it’s a living being but an AI that genuinely would imitate an “evil entity” based on human interpretation would want to do that.

AI having ethics good mmk

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Jay_H
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Re: Imagine the year is 2052…

Post by Jay_H »

I have moved this topic to Community :)

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jayhova
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Re: Imagine the year is 2052…

Post by jayhova »

This is largely my view of Daggerfall and AI in general. I see it as the job of AI to fill in the details. The idea that a human being will have to place every rock and tree is a limiting factor. My view is that AI should be a tool to allow humans to make broad strokes and refine specific things. An AI should be able to generate landmasses and then apply erosion and the effect of plants to change erosion and the effects of people on landscapes as they build farms and roads and mines, and cities over thousands of years. The AI should be able to track families as they migrate and multiply. What are the traits of the people and how do those traits affect the lives of those people? What buildings are built? Do the buildings fall into ruin? Are those ruins transformed into something else?

I am a very big proponent of world-building as opposed to game-building.
Remember always 'What would Julian Do?'.

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