Ubisoft's new AI wing melds gaming and scientific research

Game developers were researching AI well before it became a tech industry trend, but they haven't had much incentive to share their work with the academic world. Ubisoft, however, is trying to find a happy middle ground. It recently established an AI research wing, La Forge, that aims to harmonize research for both gaming and science. The new unit has academics and Ubisoft employees working together on projects that will ideally advance gaming and lead to real-world breakthroughs that scientists can publish. As an example, Ubisoft points to its work on creating a small-scale version of the San Francisco Bay Area for Watch Dogs 2. The company developed AI-guided cars and pedestrians to navigate a realistic urban environment, and that's potentially ideal for self-driving car research -- scientists could use Watch Dogs' technology to test autonomous driving in tricky situations (such as crowds) without having to put real cars on the road.