Has Fortnite’s AI blunder taught us anything?

Last week, Fortnite took a step into the great unknown (the dark side, if you will) by adding an AI chatbot of Darth Vader into its Star Wars season of the game. Each game, one player or team will be able to have Darth Vader join their squad, who will not only help them in combat, but will also have an AI-driven conversation with them.

What could possibly go wrong? As it turns out, lots, but before we get there, it’s worth bringing attention to something quite important.

Adding an AI chatbot to Fortnite was a double whammy of extreme bravery, both on the part of Epic Games (the publishers of Fortnite), and Star Wars owner, Disney. This is the first time that an AI chatbot has been added to a major game, and it was of a character owned by the notoriously protective Disney. This, to me, raises an important point about the prominence of AI, both present and future. If even Disney are willing to experiment with AI, where else will it take interactive experiences?

Anyway, earlier I pointed out that lots could go wrong, so I’ll drop the loot now.

In true Disney and Epic Games fashion, the guidelines for Darth Vader’s AI speech was thorough and strict, but they forgot one very important detail: gaming voice chat is a minefield, and a lot of gamers will stop at nothing to get Vader to say something funny. And once the clips started appearing online, it became a challenge to trick the villain into saying the most outrageous out-of-character things possible.

So, what were the results? Well, it transpires that the incarnation of Darth Vader appearing in Fortnite squads across the globe was a shouting, swearing, slur-spewing lunatic.

To their credit, Fortnite’s team were quick to react, delivering a patch to tone down the swearing Sith within 24-48 hours, but the damage was already done. Clips of Darth Vader swearing, quoting inappropriate memes, and even saying some racial slurs are now circling social media, some with millions of views. Recent patches have fixed the issue, but there are still a few English-isms that our friends across the pond have missed – although these are quite niche, and go straight over a lot of players’ heads.

But, I think there’s a lesson to learn in all of this. If companies like Epic Games and even Disney are embracing AI to offer a new interactive experience to its fans, that gives us a huge insight to the future prominence of AI in entertainment. It’s also a hard lesson learnt that gamers are a relentless bunch, who will stop at nothing to get an AI character to swear.