AI generates Let’s Play commentary from videos

Let’s Play videos — which document game playthroughs — have surged in popularity in the past decade. Felix Kjellberg, better known by his online pseudonym PewDiePie, now reaches over 100 million subscribers on YouTube with his Let’s Play content. And a recent report estimates that the audience for Let’s Play videos and livestreams now rivals that of paid content from HBO, Netflix, ESPN, and Hulu combined.

But producing quality Let’s Play videos takes time, much of which is devoted to writing scripts. To ease the burden on creators, a team at the Georgia Institute of Technology and the University of Alberta recently investigated an AI system that can automatically generate commentary. They say their approach outperforms existing work and lays the groundwork for future studies.