Sony is experimenting with AI in divisive new way - and it involves an iconic PlayStation character

Sony is reportedly experimenting with AI in a divisive way as it is working on an AI prototype of at least one of its iconic PlayStation characters.

AI has been used in gaming for a long time but its recent huge advances has led to its use ballooning to the extent where it's causing concern from all corners of the industry.

Some actors feel like they're being replaced with AI models, developers are increasingly at risk of AI tools being used to do their jobs which could lead to redundancies and gamers can notice where generative AI has been used because of its low quality, which is referred to as 'AI slop'.

It's one of the key reasons why the SAG-AFTRA video game strike started and is still taking place as voice actors and motion capture artists demand compensation, consent and transparency around the use of AI from certain American video game companies.

It's cheaper for gaming companies to use AI to generate and create content.

And Sony is understood to have shown off an AI prototype of Aloy from the Horizon series in an internal video that was leaked on YouTube.

Aloy from the Horizon series was reportedly internally shown engaging to prompts as an AI-powered character / Screenshot from Guerrilla Games, Sony

The Verge first reported an anonymous tipster shared the video with it and after its initial report, the video was pulled from YouTube because of a copyright claim from Muso, copyright enforcement company which lists Sony as a client.

It is still available on other streaming platforms though.

That video showed an AI-powered version of Aloy which could hold a conversation through voice prompts in a similar way to chatbots like ChatGPT.

Although Ashly Burch plays Aloy in the games, this version of Aloy saw her respond with an AI-powered synthesised voice and facial movements both in Horizon Forbidden West itself and in a tech demo setting.

Sharwin Raghoebardajal, a software engineering director at Sony who works on video game technology, reportedly narrated the video and said: "The demo which we ended up making is really just a quick, fun prototyping project to show what we can achieve.

"This is just a glimpse of what is possible."

It's not known if Sony plans to implement it in its games going forward and Raghoebardajal indicated it's just a concept at this stage, especially as he made it clear this is just a prototype that has been developed alongside studio Guerrilla Games to demonstrate the technology internally.

Sony is not the only company experimenting with AI; pretty well all major gaming organisations are exploring how they can benefit from using it more in what they produce and how they can innovate using it.

indy100 has approached Sony for comment.

For more from indy100, check out our best 100 video games of all time and why gamers are already hailing Death Stranding 2 as "the game of the generation".

How to join the indy100's free WhatsApp channel

Sign up to our free indy100 weekly newsletter

Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.