After an initially rocky reception, Ubisoft has explained its new AI writing tool in more detail and how it’s meant to make writers’ jobs easier.
The threat of AI replacing creatives is becoming more real by the day. The internet is already awash with AI generated artwork, much to the dismay of actual artists, and there’s been serious discussions of AI generated voice acting, which many voice actors are naturally displeased with.
So, there was plenty of pushback when Ubisoft announced that it had made an AI writing tool called Ghostwriter. Something it clearly expected since it pre-empted the details with a promise that the tool won’t replace writers.
More information has now been shared via a presentation at the Game Developer’s Conference (GDC) in San Francisco, with Ubisoft researcher and Ghostwriter creator Ben Swanson explaining how the tool not only exists to aid writers, but it can’t even do its job without their input.
The first thing Swanson was quick to explain was that Ghostwriter is not meant to be used to write full scripts, cut scene dialogue, or lore/backstory details.
Its sole purpose is to generate ‘barks.’ This covers things like one-off lines you’ll hear background characters say as you walk past them in-game.
Swanson gave a full breakdown of how exactly the technology works (via Game Developer), but perhaps the most important (or at least most reassuring) detail is that Ghostwriter is to be used by human writers.
Ubisoft’s initial announcement states that the tool is for ‘alleviating one of the video game writer’s most laborious tasks,’ and Swanson adds that he directly spoke with Ubisoft’s own writing teams as he was designing it.
He admits that the writers were apprehensive about the whole thing until they started messing around with it.
Furthermore, while the tool will automatically create lines of dialogue to fit a certain criteria, human writers can still edit and tweak them and also provide feedback on whether certain lines are good or not. Thus, the tool learns and can generate better results in the future.
Despite working with AI (or perhaps because of it), Swanson is surprisingly critical of other AI chat tools such as ChatGPT, warning developers not to rely on it for their own work.
‘You don’t know what these companies are going to do. They could get bought out by another large company and take the service away from you,’ says Swanson, mentioning how anything made with these tools risks not actually belonging to their creators.
He adds, ‘If you’re trying to build these systems, keep lines of communication and talk to narrative designers and scriptwriters. Make sure you’re not inventing a tool nobody needs.’
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