Sony AI Docuseries “The Team Behind GT Sophy” Selected for Tribeca Festival

Series looks behind-the-scenes at the development of Gran Turismo Sophy, a major breakthrough in AI for gaming and entertainment

Tokyo, Japan — May 26, 2023 — Sony AI, established with the mission to unleash human imagination and creativity with artificial intelligence (AI), today announced its episodic film series “The Team Behind GT Sophy,” was invited to participate in the 22nd Tribeca Festival as an Official Selection of the Tribeca X Competition. The Tribeca Festival, taking place June 7th – 18th in New York City, is one of the most renowned film festivals in the world, bringing artists and diverse audiences together to celebrate storytelling in all its forms, including film, TV, music, audio storytelling, games, and immersive.

The three-part documentary series is a behind the scenes look at the development of Gran Turismo Sophy (GT Sophy), the first superhuman AI agent to outrace the world’s best drivers of the highly realistic PlayStation®4 racing simulation game, Gran Turismo^TM (GT) Sport. The docuseries explores the science, creativity, and ingenuity of AI innovation through the eyes of Sony AI’s team of world-class researchers and engineers from around the globe.

The films chronicle their quest to virtually develop and train the AI agent in seven cities across three continents - from the Tokyo apartment where a Sony AI developer first tinkered with progenitors of GT Sophy to the Zurich complex where senior research scientists obsessively analyzed every spinout on massive monitors, all in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. The films offer viewers a glimpse into the trials and tribulations they experienced as part of the development process and showcases the tremendous achievements of both the team and GT Sophy. All three parts can be viewed on the Sony AI YouTube channel.

“A behind the scenes look at AI development at this scale is rare, and we were proud to open our doors to show the innovation, collaboration and raw skill it took across the many teams that worked to create our breakthrough game agent, GT Sophy, including Polyphony Digital, Sony Interactive Entertainment and even the professional Gran Turismo^TM (GT) Sport drivers.” said Michael Spranger, COO Sony Research. “The Tribeca Festival is synonymous with creative expression and entertainment, and aligns with our mission to develop AI to enhance human imagination and creativity. We are honored to have the opportunity to share our work with the greater creative community.”

The episodic series was a Godfrey Dadich Partners x Hakuhodo production directed and executive produced by Paula Chowles in partnership with the Sony AI communications team.

GT Sophy was trained utilizing a novel deep reinforcement learning platform developed in collaboration between Sony AI, Polyphony Digital Inc., and Sony Interactive Entertainment. GT Sophy’s mastery of the complex sport of race car driving in GT Sport was heralded as a new breakthrough in AI and was published in the February 10th, 2022 issue of Nature in an article titled Outracing Champion Gran Turismo Drivers with Deep Reinforcement Learning.

The full details on the GT Sophy project can be found at the Gran Turismo Sophy site.

Tribeca X celebrates the intersection of advertising and entertainment and honors the creators and brands who share a love of creativity and a mission to connect with consumers through the power of storytelling. Awarded films will be announced at the screening on June 14, 2023.

About Sony AI
Sony AI, a division of Sony Research, was founded as a subsidiary of Sony Group on April 1, 2020, with the mission to "unleash human imagination and creativity with AI." Sony AI aims to combine cutting edge research and development of artificial intelligence with Sony Group's imaging and sensing technology, robotics technology, and entertainment assets such as movies, music, and games to accelerate Sony’s transformation into an AI powered company and to create new business opportunities. To achieve this, Sony AI has launched four flagship projects to date aimed at the evolution and application of AI technology in the areas of Gaming, Imaging & Sensing, Gastronomy, and AI Ethics. For more information visit https://ai.sony.com

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