I think that’s a wonderful idea, using AI to automate and analyze would be amazing. I think my biggest problem with open world is the amount of fillers in it example all the inventory items you can pick up in fallout and not really do much with and so on.
Discussion
I know what you mean. I'm currently playing SCUM which, over the last two years or so, has seen a lot of love from the developers. The sheer amount you can do in that game from cooking to farming to PvP, PVE, RP etc etc is pretty insane.
However, with AI language models on an insane rise and after recently seeing a video where a guy had hooked up his cam to analyse the content of his fridge to suggest some keto dishes to him made me thing this would be possible in video games just the same. There is a set amount of variety of produce in the game world and the AI only has to search the web for recipes to suggest them to the player based on the produce placed in the pot.
There is so much more. UBI for example had bragged pretty heavily about the "AI" for Watchdog Legion and how every NPC would have it's own backstory and how you could engage with them and form different kind of relations (friend, associate, partner etc etc). Turns out it was all smoke. However, this should possible now with the advancements we've made with AI language models.
The game doesn't even have to be just openworld. It could be story driven and more linear just the same but AI NPC's that can pretty much converse about anything you like would be still insane even in more linear games.