ChatGPT as a sim racing driver coach?

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BMW in iRacing.jpg
The term "Artificial Intelligence" is not new, especially for a simracer. We often practice or just have fun by "racing against the AI".

Outside our hobby you have surely read (about) books or seen movies where AI plays a role, sometimes even as the protagonist or antagonist of the story itself. HAL, C3PO, The MCP, Replicants, Terminators, Data, Chappy, Cortana, Jarvis... you get the idea. Man-made constructs that behave and speak like people. But AI is not science fiction anymore, it has not been for a while actually. However, it has just recently entered a new phase where chatbots (a digital entity that can simulate textual conversations) use complex language models, large databases of information and reinforcement (machine) learning techniques to recreate responses on queries that simulate those of (well informed) human beings. In simple words: they respond to questions the way a person would.

ChatGPT​

ChatGPT is one of those chatbots that, after being released for free by OpenAI at the end of 2022, has been the talk of the internet. Particularly because ChatGPT can create large sets of text that is so correct, coherent and nuanced that can pass for words put together by a real person. News and especially universities have been taking notice, trying to react and anticipate what this technology means for different areas of work and education. ChatGPT is very interesting for research and people have used it to do their (home)work, writing things from a simple article to a graduation thesis. Schools across the world are currently trying to understand how to deal best with this technology as the impact it has can be tremendous for human learning.

Positive or Negative​

But the power of any technology is as positive (or negative) as the intentions and capabilities of the user. And one very interesting case can be seen in the video below, where an attempt is made to use ChatGPT as a driving coach for iRacing. This experiment is very interesting as it showcases how this technology works and can be implemented to teach a real person the basics of a specific discipline... such as sim racing. Enjoy!

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About author
Dzul
Dzul
Raul Martinez. Father of one, design teacher of many. Skeptical technophile, whisky philosopher and Simracer since the times of Pitstop II.

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Shovas
Premium
Where chat ai could get interesting is if, while driving your sim, you could speak to your race engineer and the ai would speak back to you

PS. Watch the video. It's more interesting than you might think at first.
 
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DaVeX↯
Shovas said:
Not bad at all

Although "You may want to consider using a harder compound for the straights and a softer compound for the corners." is hilarious, almost like it thinks you can swap tires between sectors.


View attachment 632947View attachment 632949
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In AI defense I think it means harder are best suited for tracks with less corners while softer for tracks with more corners...

Can we give AI the GTR2 manual to digest?

On the other hand, if I am right...there was a good race engineer on PC2...
 
M D Gourley
Premium
Fascinating video and while the AI is amazing it does give you possible information that is convincingly wrong and this to a noob such as myself could really put me on the wrong path to improvement.:(

Kudos to Cameron as he already knew the correct answers and was able to pull up the AI for some incorrect information, so this technolgy is possibly for experienced users that already have some knowledge of the subject matter that the AI is producing (personal opinion)....amazing technology :thumbsup:
 
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Dzul
Premium
Our university is currently putting together an AI lab and they've been experimenting with ChatGPT. Two important factors for getting well informed answers from this kind of technology are having enough reliable sources and asking questions the right way.

There is a scene in the movie "I, Robot", in which the protagonist has a conversation with a "database hologram", that illustrates these limitations. Interesting stuff.

 
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I
Dzul said:
Our university is currently putting together an AI lab and they've been experimenting with ChatGPT. Two important factors for getting well informed answers from this kind of technology are having enough reliable sources and asking questions the right way.

There is a scene in the movie "I, Robot", in which the protagonist has a conversation with a "database hologram", that illustrates these limitations. Interesting stuff.

Click to expand...
And this is exactly what I wanted to say. If you have good basic knowledge, you can use ChatGPT quite nicely to make it do things for you, which you can verify are correct.

I have used Chat e.g. for modifying emails I sent to potential customers, check things I am not 100% sure I know (but are at the 99% level), and to check code and to generate potential solutions I want to achieve etc. Yes, if you know what you want, but not exactly how you want it or how to get there, ChatGPT is really nice tool to get there, or to shorten the path.

I have looked at using AI in my tool to provide relevant information to drivers, and have done some analytics and basic models on the data (my own + opponent data), and I have a clear idea, what I want out of that, but getting the training data just e.g. for ACC would require plenty of laps on different conditions for each track from different levels of drivers. I expect that users of my tool might be happy to provide the data, if the return would be better race tactics and strategy recommendations. But collecting the data and keeping the ML models up-to-date would be a bit heavy undertaking for a hobby tool. If at some point I have extra time, I might wander into that direction.

Cheers.
 
M D Gourley
Premium
Iko Rein said:
And this is exactly what I wanted to say. If you have good basic knowledge, you can use ChatGPT quite nicely to make it do things for you, which you can verify are correct.

I have used Chat e.g. for modifying emails I sent to potential customers, check things I am not 100% sure I know (but are at the 99% level), and to check code and to generate potential solutions I want to achieve etc. Yes, if you know what you want, but not exactly how you want it or how to get there, ChatGPT is really nice tool to get there, or to shorten the path.

I have looked at using AI in my tool to provide relevant information to drivers, and have done some analytics and basic models on the data (my own + opponent data), and I have a clear idea, what I want out of that, but getting the training data just e.g. for ACC would require plenty of laps on different conditions for each track from different levels of drivers. I expect that users of my tool might be happy to provide the data, if the return would be better race tactics and strategy recommendations. But collecting the data and keeping the ML models up-to-date would be a bit heavy undertaking for a hobby tool. If at some point I have extra time, I might wander into that direction.

Cheers.
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That Iko Rein...'Is the right answer';)
 
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S
Just watched the vid. It's all just incredibly generalized, vague information. Still extremely impressive - the program in general - but, in this case (at the moment), pretty poor.

People charging other people money to learn how to play videogames - ie. "sim racing coaches" - really "irks" me. Can people just not do anything out of love, morals, ethics, passion, or simply to help others anymore? Is everything always about money, "business", and monetization? Ya, ya, go ahead, call me a Socialist or Communist.

I'm not the fastest driver in the world but if any one is looking for a simracing coach, I will gladly give you my time, effort, and focus for absolutely 100% free. If you live near me, I'd be more than happy to do it in person too. I'm 100% serious. Please feel free to PM me.

P.S. I did a little real life F2000 coaching back in my F1600 & F2000 days so coaching isn't new to me, plus "coached" some friends here and there in sims. I've been playing sims for 20 years.
 
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T_rac3
Spinelli said:
Can people just not do anything out of love, morals, ethics, passion, or simply to help others anymore?
Click to expand...
Those times are long gone and they will never come back
(three ads before a video on YT? One isn't enough????????)
 
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R
It seems to me a totally unnecessary waste of energy and time, I see it as useless as an experiment, the green stripe that the noobs put on the ground that turns red when you have to brake does the same thing as this AI.

If the objective is for an AI to effectively train a human, that is currently unfeasible for an AI for a long time, it involves many factors with a huge number of variables, each factor, without forgetting the perception of reality that this never it will have an ai.

ChatGPT can seem incredible the first time you use it, then you realize how limited an AI is and how far it is still from being a tool to replace the human.
 
pz666
Seems like this is Crew Chief taken to another level... Very interesting...
 
Andy Kettler
You do you. I'm 40 this year and i would LOVE to live in the future and be able to get rid of weak human flesh bodyparts and replace them like in CP 2077 and stuff :D
 

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