The world has been enamored with ChatGPT for the past year, particularly when Microsoft started implementing it in products like Bing and Office. Now, we're seeing the technology make its way into many different products, from AI-powered DJs to documents that write themselves.
Now, one of our favorite Quest 2 games, Golf+, is getting an impressive update that adds an AI caddie powered by the same technology behind ChatGPT and Google Bard: LLM, or large language model. As demonstrated in the Twitter video below, gamers can chat with the caddie and ask for tips, shot suggestions, golf lessons, and, get this, even to generate a special course for you to practice your skills.
🤯AI caddy is 🔥Totally convinced that this is the future of interaction in #VR!Huge shoutout to @batwood011 and @SindarinTech for getting the API ready in record time. The implications here are incredible. pic.twitter.com/EDMfyS9w8oMarch 31, 2023
There's a small delay between asking the question and hearing "Arthur's" response, as the chatbot goes by, which is common for chatbots. If you use Google Bard on your phone, for instance, you'll see the same kind of minimal delay between asking the question and receiving a response.
But the quick turnaround on responding isn't what's so impressive here. For one, the bot remembers the player's name and references it in every response back to the player in a natural way.
Of course, the ability to generate a specific putting green based on a player's specifications is also deeply impressive and shows how effectively LLM chatbots can be integrated into already-existing technology.
And the best part is that it's coming soon to Golf+.
What's next?
This is, of course, the initial version of the AI caddie and will certainly improve over time. As we've seen with other ChatGPT-style chatbots, Arthur will almost certainly learn things from your interactions with him and maybe even deliver improved responses over time.
When I asked about the bot's creativity limitations on Twitter GOLF+'s founder and CEO, Ryan Engle, suggested that we could soon see full course creation based on player input.
Arthur can take you to specific courses and even alter weather conditions and shot placements based on your requests.
For now, we're expecting to see several additional videos surrounding Arthur's capabilities over the next few days. Engle said to keep an eye out for things like "Let's start a round on Pebble Beach from the back tees, hard pins, high wind" and "I want to practice hole 7 of Pebble Beach."
It's definitely a lot more user-friendly and convenient than trying to navigate menus, that's for sure, and I think that part might be one of the best things to come out of this. Less friction means users will keep coming back for more, and that's a win for any game developer.
Looking further into the future, wouldn't it be amazing to see Arthur integrated with something like Midjourney or DALL-E — two popular LLM bots that create art — to allow users to create as realistic or as whimsical of worlds as their imaginations allow? The possibilities here are certainly endless and it makes me wonder what other games could benefit from this kind of AI integration.
