Sony Patents AI that can Copy your Playstyle

Another day, another patent from a video game company. While occasionally patents can be horrifying — like EA’s ‘lets adjust the difficulty to make you spend more money in the in-game store’ thing — most of the time they’re just interesting, like Sony’s patent to turn any object in the house, like a banana, into a controller. Well, this week, Sony’s back at it, and their latest patent is two parts cool and one part creepy: an AI that watches you play.

That’s right — called an “AI Profile”, the algorithm watches you play for the express purpose of learning to copy your playstyle. The goal isn’t to learn how to play, but to learn how you play, so it can recreate it. Then, it seems, the player will have the choice to swap themselves out with the AI, so the AI can keep playing for you while you do something else, like use the bathroom or swallow a block of cheese. Basically an Amiibo, but with less steps involved.

The patent also proposes a system where the AI would detect when a player is struggling, and would offer to step in to help them overcome that challenge. Maybe not super useful for the average egomaniac, but for people who play to chill? Could be a real neat feature.

As a reminder, patenting something isn’t the same as a plan to actually make something — companies patent stuff all the time and just sit on them, because they’re valuable no matter if they’re used or not. That said, this looks like a patent that could actually find use, considering we already know people like this kind of stuff. Plus — who wouldn’t like an AI to take over for them mid-game when they really gotta take a whizz?

Sounds like a great service to me.