Xbox’s Matt Booty wants to see QA testers replaced by AI

Xbox Game Studios head Matt Booty told a live audience at PAX that he’d like to see QA (Quality Assurance) testers replaced by AI.

Gaming QA testers regularly come under fire as bug-riddled games reach the hands of disappointed gamers with seemingly increasing prevalence.

The backlash QA testers receive from frustrated gamers is often misplaced. Managers are often aware that games are full of bugs but decide to release unfinished games anyway in the hope of starting to...

7 September 2022 | Applications

Inworld closes $50M Series A for its realistic NPC generator

Inworld, a Disney-backed startup using AI to create realistic non-playable virtual characters (NPCs), has closed a $50 million Series A funding round.

The startup has attracted interest for its ability to design and deploy interactive characters with more realistic interactions across the metaverse and other virtual words like video games.

In current video games, NPCs have pre-scripted responses. AI-powered virtual characters like those Inworld are developing can offer...

24 August 2022 | Applications

Uber’s AI beats troublesome games with new type of reinforcement learning

Video games have become a proving ground for AIs and Uber has shown how its new type of reinforcement learning has succeeded where others have failed. Some of mankind’s most complex games, like Go, have failed to challenge AIs from the likes of DeepMind. Reinforcement learning trains algorithms by running scenarios repeatedly with a ‘reward’ given for successes, often a score increase. Two classic games from the 80s – Montezuma’s Revenge and Pitfall! – have thus far been immune to...

27 November 2018 | Research