The Five Levels of Generative AI for Games
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The document discusses 5 levels of generative AI that could be applied to games and virtual worlds, inspired by levels of autonomous vehicles. It outlines the levels for 4 types of creators: game studios, modders, players, and the game itself. The levels range from no automation to direct creativity from imagination. For each creator type, level 5 represents a state where generative AI is seamlessly integrated to directly spawn creations from ideas or prompts. The document aims to help identify opportunities for generative AI and mark progress in virtual world innovations.
The Five Levels of Generative AI for Games
- 1. Games and Virtual Worlds: The 5 Levels of Generative AI Jon Radoff
- 2. Generative AI for Games With recent advances in generative AI, there has been a lot of discussion about how it will be used in games, virtual worlds and the metaverse. We need a way to identify the big opportunities and mark progress towards some of the more amazing innovations. Google Trends: Interest in Generative AI as of January 25, 2023
- 3. Inspiration from Autonomous Cars SAE International developed 5 levels of autonomous features for cars. What if we applied a similar progress to the work of creating virtual worlds and games? Source: https://www.sae.org/standards/content/j3016_202104/
- 4. Games feature many types of creators While autonomous cars will do work for us—in virtual worlds, we can express ourselves creatively and affect the product itself. While much of the initial focus on generative AI in games has been the potential to accelerate production pipelines at game studios—a more holistic view of games must account for all of the creators who touch games. Let’s look at these categories of creators…
- 5. Game Player Modder Studio The developers create the experience, using engines & tools that exist outside a particular game framework. Examples: games built on Unity and Unreal or bespoke engines; Elden Ring, Grand Theft Auto, Call of Duty, World of Warcraft and most games that have ever been made. Creative continuum for games & virtual worlds Extensions of the experience created outside the game loop using external tools. Examples: Minecraft mods, Terraria mods, World of Warcraft UI mods, Neverwinter Nights, Quake, Roblox games–or old-fashioned hacking like using a sector-editor. Some games feature creativity that takes place inside the game. Examples: Minecraft; Sim City; Star Wars Galaxies; social creativity such as guilds in MMOs; meta-creativity like Twitch streaming The game itself creates content while you play. Examples: AI Dungeon; Replika; Hidden Door; but includes older procedural techniques such as those in Elder Scrolls games and Roguelikes (e.g,., Diablo series). In games, these domains of creativity are messy, overlapping and growing more emergent
- 6. Generative to pre-generative The levels for generative content in games also needs to reflect the background in “pre-generative” technologies such as automation, 3D engines and procedural content that already accelerated aspects of game development. Let’s map these categories of creators against the history and future of generative technology for games:
- 7. Generative Levels: Studio-as-creator LEVEL 0 No Automation No meaningful automation (but might kitbash a bit). Creator builds their own engine & backend. LEVEL 1 Creator Assistance Uses 3D engine and/or backend platform as compositional framework. Leverages off-the-shelf tools and code. LEVEL 2 Partial Automation Non-technical tools for creative inputs. Tech eliminates previous steps. Serverless & containers adopted. LEVEL 3 Conditionally Generative Generative AI used for some parts of the pipeline. Human heavily in the loop, concept/story iteration, code gen. LEVEL 4 Highly Generative Total automation of 1+ creative pipelines, e.g., text prompt to make completely usable 3D models. LEVEL 5 Direct from Imagination Multiple generative pipelines integrated comprehensively into a composition.. Creativity happens outside an established game system
- 8. Generative Levels: Modder-as-creator LEVEL 0 Hackers Only The game has no inherent modding. The way it all began: hackers with old- fashioned sector editors, disassemblers. LEVEL 1 Game-provided Tools The game comes with tools such as map-editors or accessible interfaces to apply off-the-shelf creative tools. LEVEL 2 Scripting Interfaces Game provides an API to build mods, or provides an embedded script interface for creating mods. LEVEL 3 Conditionally Generative Generative AI used for some parts of the pipeline (concept art, story, etc.) with a human heavily in the loop. LEVEL 4 Highly Generative Integrated generative tooling, e.g., tools like map editors invoke generative AI to accelerate creation. LEVEL 5 Direct from Imagination Complete mod is spawned from an idea. Iterative ”sculpting” of the mod through prompts used for refinement. Creativity happens within a game system, but outside the core game loop
- 9. Generative Levels: Player-as-creator LEVEL 0 Limited Creativity The creativity is limited to tactics and strategy pertaining to mastering the game itself. LEVEL 1 Player-as-Content The player alters a game by affecting social systems & economy, but doesn’t meaningfully impact content. LEVEL 2 Worldbuilding The player’s actions affect persistent content of the world, like living narratives and content. LEVEL 3 Emergent Narrative The player impacts the shape of the world itself, such as how maps and structures live in a persistent world. LEVEL 4 Integrated Generativity Things formerly the domain of modding become part of the game loop, along with in-loop generative AI. LEVEL 5 Direct from Imagination If players can dream of it, they speak it into existence; game system fits it to rules in an appropriate manner. Players express themselves within the core game loop
- 10. Generative Levels: Game-as-creator LEVEL 0 Static Games The game doesn’t change in significant ways between gameplay experiences. Set level progression, etc. LEVEL 1 Procedural Content Rule-based procedural content such as unique maps during play. May also include basic AI opponents. LEVEL 2 Live Generative Content Generative content in-the-loop utilizes rule-based systems (such as RLHF) to maintain consistency & structure. LEVEL 3 Conditionally Generative Experience includes content generated “live” while playing: text, images, music or NLP-aware characters. LEVEL 4 Highly Generative ”Game as Dungeon Master,” game understands what a player likes most and personalizes/adapts experience. LEVEL 5 Full Computational Creativity Explores the search space of human fun: like a game-designer friend who comes up with new systems. The game loop itself contains generative experiences
- 11. What level of generative technology do you aspire to in your own games and virtual worlds? Jon Radoff | Metavert https://twitter.com/jradoff https://linkedin.com/in/jonradoff This Composition is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0