Sony built an AI that can beat you at video games, with honor

Gran Turismo now joins a long list of games in which AIs have beaten people, including shogi, Go, Starcraft, classic Atari video games, and multiplayer series Defense of the Ancients, for which the Microsoft-backed OpenAI created a fighter bot. But Gran Turismo has higher complexity than other console games, requiring players to balance the physics of friction and aerodynamics, all while making split-second judgment calls and reacting to shifting landscapes with light-speed reflex. And even beyond that, experts say Sophy's achievements stand out in its capacity to behave aggressively, yet still fairly, and to observe the gamers' code of conduct beyond just the letter of the law--in other words, to embody the subtle nuances of human character. While technically legal, Sony didn't want Sophy to win by bullying other racers off the road. To make sure it wouldn't, they trained its neural network by levying penalties for collisions with other drivers, for example--using a trial-and-error process referred to as reinforcement learning.