Date: 07/16/2023
Author: Mr. X
“Skryim belongs to the Nords!”
All right, it’s a bit dated as a battle cry, just as lame as making a joke about how you used to be an adventurer but then you took an arrow to the knee. But, in truth, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim was the last video game in some ways. It was a single-player game that was mostly finished on release and not dependent on DLC nor on online subcultures or competitive gaming. It was an old-fashioned game – not really different from some 8-bit Legend of Zelda, just with better graphics and more adventures.
So it is oddly fitting that it is still making headlines. Mods for the game have become so common it has given it a new life. Many of them are for various NPC followers with customized appearances, dialogue, and abilities. However, a few months ago, one of the most significant ones was released with “Herika,” an NPC follower with dialogue based on ChatGPT. It can actually respond to what you say, and craft its responses in kind, giving a totally new player experience.
“Skyrim Belongs to AI!”
AI companions are probably the future of video games in many ways. The increasing atomization of many young people in developed societies, a destructive trend massively accelerated by COVID-19, is only going to get worse in the years ahead. Healthy societies would think of ways to reverse it. However, we are not living in healthy societies. What will happen instead is we will see more attempts to make money off it.
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It will get truly dystopian when we come to relationships – the situation in some northeastern Asian countries of young people completely abandoning relationships for a shut-in virtual life will probably get even worse when virtual relationships become more “realistic.” But gaming will probably embrace a less destructive form of this, with AI followers accompanying avatars on their various adventures. As actual life becomes increasingly surveilled, tone-policed, and socially dangerous, more people will seek meaning and even companionship in a world of fantasy, and AI will be there to pick up the slack.
Nvidia (NVDA), the leader when it comes to AI, is already taking the lead by showing off NVIDIA ACE. It recently showed the “Kairos” demo that used Nvidia Riva for speech-to-text, NeMo for conversational AI, and Audio2Face for facial animation for voice inputs. The result was dialogue with an NPC bartender in a game that gives plausible dialogue for beginning a quest. Developers could easily use this model to create games quickly.
Of course, voice actors, graphic designers, and many others who once had an important role in video game creation now find their jobs endangered. The flip side is that there is potentially a much lower bar to creating games, potentially leading to a new renaissance of development.
Expect game developers to push for major restrictions on who is able to access these new tools and far more stringent copyright and licensing laws. The strike currently taking place in Hollywood will probably be followed by similar battles in gaming as the industry grapples with technology that it isn’t ready for. And who would have thought – Skyrim is still the future of gaming.
Mr. X is an investment analyst working in the Washington DC area who specializes in the intersection of business and public policy. After fifteen years working in politics, he writes on a classified basis for RogueInvesting.com to bring you news on what those with power are debating, planning, and doing
