Sony's AI Drives a Race Car Like a Champ

Takuma Miyazono began driving virtual race cars at age 4, when his father brought home the highly realistic motorsport game Gran Turismo 4. Sixteen years later, in 2020, Miyazono became the Gran Turismo world champion, winning an unprecedented "triple crown" of esports motor racing events. But he had never faced a Gran Turismo driver quite like GT Sophy, an artificial intelligence developed by Sony and Polyphony Digital, the studio behind the Gran Turismo franchise. "Sophy is very fast, with lap times better than expected for the best drivers," he says via a translator. "But watching Sophy, there were certain moves that I only believed were possible afterward." Video games have become an important sandbox for AI research in recent years, with computers mastering a growing array of titles.