Copilot, Microsoft's AI-powered chatbot assistant thing, is coming to Xbox as "Copilot for Gaming," which aims to "help you save time, find new games you’re likely to love, or even to help ease you back into a game you may have stepped away from."
"Copilot for Gaming is built on three principles: capability, adaptability, and personalization," Microsoft said. "It is designed to assist players in various ways, from personalized game recommendations and seamless game setup, to helpful coaching and maintaining connections with friends."
Xbox corporate vice president of gaming AI Fatima Kardar and vice president of next generation Jason Ronald demonstrated a couple examples of Copilot for Gaming's in-game functionality during today's episode of the Official Xbox Podcast.
First, in Overwatch 2, the AI can be seen making pre-match recommendations for character choice, and then explaining how the player got smoked so badly and suggesting a switch to a different character. The second example, in Minecraft, is more of a straight-up tutorial, except the player is asking the AI what to do, and the AI responds with step-by-step instructions on how to build a house by punching a tree.
Much like Sony's AI Aloy creepshow earlier this week, these demonstrations are early-stage work: "Explorations and proof of concepts," Kardar says in the video. "But what is really cool about them is they help us understand what we need to do on the platform.
"[With] Overwatch 2, what we really explored was, what does it take to reach that threshold of feeling successful? And I love that term, because your level of feeling successful is different [from] my level of feeling successful. And so in that, we explored some scenarios like assistance, like on team composition, what could you do, right? And then, maybe post-match, kind of coaching you and doing it in the down period."
Beyond that sort of in-game assistance, Copilot for Gaming will supposedly also help "connect you with families and communities," tell you when your friends are doing things online, recommend new games to play so you don't have to talk to actual people whose opinions you might value, and chat with and trash-talk you, if that's what you're into. Kardar said it's vital that Copilot for Gaming not be "intrusive," and players will have full control over how, or if, they interact with it.
I'm a little bit torn on the whole thing, personally. In some ways it's really not all that far removed from popping over to GameFAQs, or using a coupon that came in the game box to order a guide book: An evolution of technology that accomplishes an essentially unchanging goal. Mostly, though, I think it sounds awful, in the way that most AI stuff sounds awful. What are we getting out of all this that we don't already have, and at what cost, beyond parallel growth in convenience and—pleasant promises about staying "connected" notwithstanding—isolation from the real world?
Eh, maybe I'm not all that torn on it after all.
A rollout date for Copilot for Gaming hasn't been announced yet, but it will be available for Xbox Insiders on mobile platforms, before eventually being rolled out to consoles and PC—assuming the AI bubble doesn't pop first, I suppose.
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