Microsoft has announced Muse, a generative AI model that can “generate game visuals, controller actions, or both”. The company is calling it the first example of a WHAM, or World and Human Action Model.
In a post on the official Microsoft website, the company reveals that Muse was developed in conjunction with Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice studio Ninja Theory. The model was trained on Ninja Theory’s battle arena game Bleeding Edge.
A followup post on the Xbox website says Muse can “create consistent and diverse gameplay rendered by AI”, which Microsoft calls “a major step toward generative AI models that can empower game creators”. I’m not so sure about that one myself.
In both posts, Microsoft gives some examples of the kind of gameplay Muse is currently able to generate. Honestly, I might just not be infected by the tech brain worms, but to me it looks pretty low-quality.
It’s not just me, either; The Verge confirms that Muse is currently only capable of generating gameplay at a paltry 300 x 180 resolution, and not only that, but it’s also limited to 10 frames per second. Find me a PC gamer that would be happy with those numbers.
I know, I know. The tech is still in its early stages, and I’m sure that Microsoft will be able to iterate on it in order to create a model that can convincingly generate higher-resolution gameplay at a better frame rate.
Honestly, though, I’m still left wondering what the point of it all is. According to Microsoft, it’s all about “effectively support[ing] human creatives” and that potential applications include “the opportunity to make older games accessible to future generations of players across new devices and in new ways”.
From a cynical perspective, though, I can only really see companies looking for ways to cut out human developers and replace them with AI processes once the tech becomes even remotely viable for doing so.
That’s not to mention the colossal environmental impact of AI, which doesn’t appear to be mentioned in either of the aforementioned Microsoft posts, nor (ironically) in the Nature article in which the Muse research paper is contained.
Still, if you’d like to read about Microsoft’s new Muse model and get some of the nerdy details about how it works, you can do so here. There’s also a less technical and more gamer-focused explanation over on the Xbox website if you prefer.
