Nvidia’s AI squadmate is finally dropping into PUBG

One of the frustrating things about the proliferation of “AI”, in the large language model sense, is how it muddles previously serviceable terms. It’s neither artificial intelligence, in the sci-fi robot sense, nor artificial intelligence in the video game sense — i.e., deliberate programmed behavior not controlled by the player. Until now: Nvidia’s newest software goodie is very much in the latter category.

This is Nvidia ACE, short for Avatar Cloud Engine, which the company has been demonstrating for multiple years. The first arguably practical implementation is now available in Player Unknown’s Battlegrounds, where a special “Ally Duo Mode” will let you play with an ACE-controlled squadmate on your quest to kill every other person (and now, non-person) on the map. The mode will only be available for the next two weeks, until June 30th, and only to those with an Nvidia graphics card with 8GB of memory or more. Players won’t have a competitive advantage in this mode.

The demonstration video (only in Chinese, with English subtitles) does its best to make you believe that you’re playing co-op with a real, talking person. It’s running at least three different SLM (small language model) programs simultaneously to analyze and synthesize speech, apparently in near-real time. The demo is more or less convincing, though I must say that the ACE NPC’s responses seem to have the same fawning effluence as a ChatGPT reply.

The demo video’s on-demand tips on where to drop on the battle royale map or alerts that it’s found a specific weapon are reminding me of Razer’s Project Ava anime girl in a jar. It doesn’t help that the only available avatar for your squadmate is “Ella,” who wears a hoodie with a corgi face in the demonstration video. There’s something to be unpacked here, but it’s beyond my scope of coverage as a PC nerd. That said, I find it funny that this AI demo is coming in cooperation with Krafton, a company that famously asked ChatGPT for tips on how to screw developers out of millions of dollars in contracted payments.

Sadly I haven’t played PUBG in years, and wasn’t very good when I did, so I can’t evaluate ACE’s effectiveness as a virtual squadmate in combat. That seems like a pretty huge potential pitfall to this test. Though Nvidia claims that it’s “responsive enough for high-stakes combat while preserving the flexible, natural feel of a true teammate,” I suspect that high-skill players will still find them less useful as an actual combatant than as a decoy or distraction. That’s generally how I use hired NPCs in Fortnite, anyway, and it would take a dramatic performance that didn’t rely on overpowered exploits to convince me to do otherwise.

Even so, having an NPC that can interact with the environment dynamically, synthesize speech without pre-recorded lines, and do it all on only a portion of video memory is impressive. Computer-controlled squadmates or escort characters have long been a thorn in the side of gamers, breaking immersion and causing headaches. They get lost or stuck on the environment, or heal you with an expensive potion after barely a scratch. Improving this AI (in the gaming sense) really could open up options for developers trying to expand their in-game worlds with more lifelike NPCs.

I wonder if you could have enough variety in these characters to make them feel more real — we’ve all felt how the allegedly human residents of Liberty City or Night City eventually just fade into the background, more obstacle than interactive element, after a few hours of play. And imbuing hundreds of these ACE-powered NPCs at a time is probably beyond the system’s capabilities at the moment. But pulling something like that off might be a huge step forward for larger games, and even as a self-styled hater of “AI” in its modern and deliberately mislabeled incarnation, I’d be curious to see it.