Nomination
Gran Turismo SophyTM (GT Sophy) is a breakthrough in AI
featured as a cover article in the Feb 10, 2022 edition of Nature.
Sony AI in partnership with Polyphony Digital, maker of Gran Turismo and Sony Interactive Entertainment, which provided the cloud infrastructure for massive scale AI training, developed a revolutionary superhuman autonomous AI racing agent that outraced the world’s best drivers of the highly realistic PlayStation®4 racing simulation game, Gran TurismoTM (GT) Sport.
Sony AI researchers and engineers developed innovative reinforcement learning (RL) techniques including a new training algorithm called Quantile-Regression Soft Actor-Critic (QR-SAC), agent-understandable encodings of the rules of racing, and a training regimen that promoted the acquisition of nuanced skills for high-speed, wheel-to-wheel racing. Through these key innovations in RL Techniques, GT Sophy mastered the skills of Race Car Control, Racing Tactics and Racing Etiquette, characteristics that are not present in earlier AI breakthroughs.
GT Sophy was developed with a view to how AI agents in games (as opponents or collaborators) can enhance the players’ gaming experience.
Credits
Gran Turismo Sport: © 2021 Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc. Developed by Polyphony Digital Inc. Manufacturers, cars, names, brands and associated imagery featured in this game in some cases include trademarks and/or copyrighted materials of their respective owners. All rights reserved. Any depiction or recreation of real world locations, entities, businesses, or organizations is not intended to be or imply any sponsorship or endorsement of this game by such party or parties.
“Gran Turismo” and “Gran Turismo Sophy” logos are registered trademarks or trademarks of Sony Interactive Entertainment Inc.
https://www.nature.com/nature/volumes/602/issues/7896
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-04357-7
https://ai.sony/articles/sonyai009/
Biography
Pete Wurman (US) received his undergraduate degree from MIT in Mechanical Engineering and a PhD in Computer Science at the University of Michigan. He helped co-found Kiva Systems, the company that pioneered mobile robots in warehousing, which was acquired by Amazon in 2012. For their invention, Pete and his co-founders were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame in 2022. Pete has over 50 academic papers and 60 patents, and is an IEEE Fellow and AAAI Fellow.
Sony AI Inc. As a wholly owned subsidiary of Sony Group Corporation, Sony AI was established in April 2020 to accelerate the fundamental research and development of AI with the mission to unleash human imagination and creativity with AI. https://ai.sony