Meet Gran Turismo Sophy, A Superhuman AI That You May Never Beat

Sony AI and Polyphonic have been working together for a while and are now finally ready to unveil their AI creation. Named Gran Turismo Sophy, the driving AI is the first major product from Sony’s AI development department. The feature is not coming to Gran Turismo 7 but will be implemented in future games. 

The Sony AI blog post on Sophy elucidated the many challenges faced when making a driving AI that could compete against Gran Turismo‘s best drivers. The AI would first have to understand GT‘s physics engine, which is in itself a task. Gran Turismo labels itself as the most realistic driving simulator in the world, which means the physics engine is as close to real-life as possible.  

Once it had learned the engine, the AI needed to learn how to race against players. This would mean real-world driving tactics like drifting, driving up against walls, and how to overtake someone fairly. 

That turns racing into a complex back and forth between opponents including defend and pretend behaviors as well as pushing the limits on the racing lines, braking and acceleration points. 

Sony AI Blog Post

Teaching Sophy all the rules, regulations, and etiquette required more than just a team of programmers and a few human racers. It also needed the gathering of anonymous data from Sony’s PlayStation Network, utilizing actual races from real humans in real Gran Turismo games. Equipped with this information, Sophy reiterated on a thousand PS4s to become the ultimate AI opponent. 

Sophy’s final test was up against Emily Jones, FIA Gran Turismo Championships 2020 World Finalist, and undoubtedly one of the best Gran Turismo drivers in the world. During their race, Sophy had advanced so much in her learnings that she also taught Emily a couple of new tricks. 

It is very fast. Way faster than I was expecting. The way that it drove was completely different to the way that I drove certain corners. 

Emily Jones

Sony has not revealed when Sophy will be implemented, so there is no guarantee she will show up as an opponent in the upcoming Gran Turismo 7. But it will be interesting to see her in future games of the franchise. 

About Gran Turismo 7  

Gran Turismo 7 is the eighth mainline installment in the Gran Turismo series. It is being developed by Polyphony Digital and will be published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for the PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 consoles. The current slated release date for the game is March 4, 2022.