M+E Connections
Sony Gives ‘Resident Evil’ Character the AI Treatment
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As if the “Resident Evil” series wasn’t spooky enough, Sony’s going to make the latest installment even creepier, giving the evil Red Queen character artificial intelligence, putting her in Facebook Messenger, and letting users converse with her.
What could possibly go wrong?
“As digital marketers and filmmakers, our goal is to find new ways to push the boundaries of emerging technologies in entertainment IP,” said Sony Pictures EVP of international marketing Sal Ladestro. “Seeing the power of artificial intelligence collaborating with talented scriptwriters and filmmakers is just the beginning. We always strive to enable moviegoers to have unique experiences with our characters and this will set an industry standard of how to use messenger platforms to market our movies.”
Made for the upcoming release of “Resident Evil: The Final Chapter,” the Red Queen AI character is snarky and dismissive to those who chat with her, and challenges fans of the franchise to test their knowledge of the franchise. Using automated AI, created by AI specialists IV.AI, the character responds like a real person, in real time, and has a built-in natural language processer. “Resident Evil” scripts, films and writers from Sony were used to give the Red Queen her information.
IV.AI CEO Vince Lynch said the creation is “a new way of approaching entertainment via social media. Using customized AI, we can better understand the nuances of a character and allow fans to play along in real life. I like that we’re taking fictional AI that is normally portrayed as dark and tweaking the sentiment to make it fun and entertaining.”
The #ChallengeTheRedQueen experience is available in the U.S,, Australia, the U.K., Spain, Mexico and Russia.
