Serious What’s everyone’s opinion on gaming company using Ai.

[Steve]

With the recent wave of naughty dog trying to implement Ai more and the new rumour of Sega using Ai on the planning stage, do you think it’s undermines the artistic vision and makes the product more soulless, if it’s using a tool that doesn’t have emotion, or do you think it’s something that’s great and can make, making game faster and easier and allow more people to envision their dreams.

Like should these tool only be for performance and visuals?

Since the thought of artist loosing their jobs to animate characters movements and design is something that’s unbelievable upsetting.






I’m personally interested hearing what’s everyone opinion of Ai becoming the norm in the entertainment industry and also the gaming industry.

 

[Cubs017]

I have mixed feelings. If used correctly it could be a great tool to help with budgets and development time, both of which have kind of ballooned out of control.

There’s a fine line between that and just using AI as a way to cut a ton of jobs and put out cheap software.

 

[the_marmolade]

For Arts, Assets and Design: It can fly to the moon
For problem-solving and long labour task that isn't in creative field: It hopefully speed game dev cycles.

 

[BassForever]

I have mixed feelings. If used correctly it could be a great tool to help with budgets and development time, both of which have kind of ballooned out of control.

There’s a fine line between that and just using AI as a way to cut a ton of jobs and put out cheap software.

First post nailed it. I foresee lots of talented artist and musicians getting the boot and players being subjected to worse games because of it.

 

[Raccoon]

y'know how everybody is always saying that there are too many games and they have backlogs or whatever

well we're about five years from every new game being shit so all of those games are going to get played eventually

 

[darthdiablo]

Like any tool, tool has potential to be misused. AI is one such tool. I'm not like others who seem to be laser-focused on being anti-AI specifically (a form of ludditism)

If used correctly, AI can bring great strides to the gaming industry. (key words: used correctly)

 

[Lugia667]

I kinda feel like at this point, there's really no stopping it completely. Best we can do is try to contain it as best as possible and make sure it's used as best it can even if the possibility is slim, like automation in blue collar jobs

An outright ban on AI could also lead down some very slippery slopes while those companies find loopholes and use it anyways

Sorry if this post is very pessimistic lol

 

[eye0h]

Using AI to create characters and nuanced dialogue

Yeah I'm just not playing whatever slop they put out lmao

 

[BlackthornOrion]

broadly speaking, I think if people didn't care enough to (pay people to) actually make a game, I don't see why I should care enough to play it

 

[Aufhebung RPG]

The use of AI can't be curbed, but the focus is on how to introduce new industry guidelines to prevent the use of AI at the creative stage. I think I'm more worried about the use of AI at the creative stage than I am about the technology itself, and I don't want to lose sight of the fact that the nature of the cultural industry is human creativity.

 

[TheGreatMightyPoo]

I don’t like anything about AI.

 

[Ab]

More and more indie games will be coming out

 

[oldpuck]

DLSS is AI. Make your peace with AI one way or the other before the next console comes out. But right now, Google is telling people to put Glue in their Pizza. That's bad on a number of levels, but at least one of them is it's a totally useless tool. You can't build anything of value on top of that garbage that isn't memes. And that includes video games.

Let's not conflate techno-bubble robber-baron faux-commodities capitalism, and all its obvious evils, with tools that are basically just the next era of the procedural generation tools that have been in games since the 70s, including Breath of the Wild.

AI can never make interesting art, it is by definition making the statistically most likely thing. It can be a tool in the hands of artists to make interesting art, and while I'm sure some artists will lose their jobs in the short term, as the industry makes a series of bad decisions, the only things that AI can truly replace is the grunt work. It can accelerate the work of artists.

AI as a tool is morally neutral. The models that modern AI companies are throwing around are not. They are built on actions that I believe are both unethical and only legal through loopholes and ignorance. That is a big pile of fuckery. But I don't think it can be stopped if the backlash to it is "AI is bad" instead of "Uh, Google is plagiarizing people and then using the plagiarism to poison their food." That last thing is real, concrete, and not at all technophobic. If anything it is pro-pizza.

 

[Clov]

If nobody is making the art, I don't see why I should bother looking

I have no interest in games with AI art or that are written using AI. I'll stick to what I know is made by people, and if that means sticking to small time indies on Itch, then that's what I'll do.

 

[HockeyBird]

It will be used to help speed up development but companies will push it further and further to replace existing workers. However, even as AI replaces people, companies will find out that game development is too expensive and find ways to layoff existing human staff whenever possible.

 

[9-Volt]

It's great if it's used to take some load off of employees. But it should not be used as a money saver, all AI should do is the shorten the dev cycles. Its advantages should not be at expense of jobs of people in the industry. Work for your consumers, not for your shareholders.

I expect EU to bring even more regulations regarding AI and job cuts in the future. We're not at the point where automation completely takes over human jobs and no one needs to work so employers still needs to play nice.

 

[Sin & Punishment]

It shouldn't have any involvement with creative decisions or art

As a general tool for speeding up workflow and productivity? Go for it

 

[Koti]

As much as I dislike AI in general, I also think it's the future. It's the same with the internet. When the internet was first a thing, there were negative opinions just like what we see towards AI currently. Now it's completely normal. I think those who oppose AI will only be left behind. The internet has a lot of pros and cons, I expect AI to be similar in that regard.

 

[Aufhebung RPG]

As much as I dislike AI in general, I also think it's the future. It's the same with the internet. When the internet was first a thing, there were negative opinions just like what we see towards AI currently. Now it's completely normal. I think those who oppose AI will only be left behind. The internet has a lot of pros and cons, I expect AI to be similar in that regard.

Although this is a trend I will try to avoid all trends - Shigeru Miyamoto

Technology doesn't dictate what is good or bad at the creative level, it only determines whether the larger companies have enough margins to expand, or what is known as "cost-cutting", so encouraging the industry to go back to "smaller, more sophisticated" game development would undoubtedly be beneficial.

 

[Soul Skater]

the only idea I can think of that I sort of would like to see is ai dialogue in animal crossing. Even if what the animals say is completely nonsensical or whatever I can see it working or fitting with the vibe

 

[dolpic]

Luigi's Mansion 4 will outsell every AI game.

 

[chocolate_supra]

y'know how everybody is always saying that there are too many games and they have backlogs or whatever

well we're about five years from every new game being shit so all of those games are going to get played eventually

Silver linings

Like any tool, tool has potential to be misused. AI is one such tool. I'm not like others who seem to be laser-focused on being anti-AI specifically (a form of ludditism)

If used correctly, AI can bring great strides to the gaming industry. (key words: used correctly)

This is the second time you've called AI skeptics luddites and I gotta say I really don't appreciate that.

Do you follow any artists on social media or know any personally? Do you see or hear the screaming from the rooftops of people whose work is being stolen and their livelihoods destroyed? Seen interviews with the people developing these tools saying that it's actually morally good that vast swaths of people will lose their jobs because the future requires it? Have you seen wave after wave of professional artists enraged and in pain and out of work because corporations have a new shiny toy that gives them the ability to not only torch the workforce but also steal from them at the same time? Seen the AI proponents who insist it "democratizes art" while seeking out and bullying real artists for not using it? Hell, there are professional artists here on Famiboards who have already started losing work to generative AI.

One of the hardest-hitting things I've seen about it is that AI has now removed our confidence that anything was actually drawn/painted by a person. Anytime we see anything pretty now we're counting fingers and looking for odd smudges in the hair. It's removing the privilege of just appreciating people's work by having us immediately question whether it's even real. And that's fucking sad. Can't even enjoy art anymore without wondering if it was created by a program designed to steal. It's like the systematic removal of anything we as human people might be able to enjoy, and people are saying it's good because corporations will be able to make so much money with it though. Professional artists are even beginning to simply bail on the industry because they're being so devalued by this that it feels like there's no point. Like teachers quitting en masse in the American south due to political movements destroying their faith in being able to do what they do. It's sickening and disheartening to see them put us and our work through a fucking meat grinder and then watch people cheer them on because new fancy technology.

tl;dr: Taking the position of "well it's the future!!" while people's livelihoods are being removed with it and our lives' work are being stolen through it and then calling us luddites for speaking up is kinda insensitive imo.


I guess that's also my answer to the thread's question.

Edit: also fuck Neil Druckmann

 

[undefined]

I’m not sure the quality of these tools will ever be enough for these big projects but that won’t stop companies from trying to use it to cut jobs

 

[Tangerine_Cookie]

I don't have issues with the concept of generative AI in principle. But if the models they're using to generate text and art have been trained on mostly everyone's data, without their explicit consent, then I don't think a private corporation should own any of it, and less so use it to actually make job conditions for those artists worse. And of course, no copyright or any IP protection should apply to the things generated by it.

Basically, open it up for everyone to use for free at their home.

tl;dr this would be cool tech if we ended capitalism.

 

[Mer.Saloon]

Like any tool, tool has potential to be misused. AI is one such tool. I'm not like others who seem to be laser-focused on being anti-AI specifically (a form of ludditism)

If used correctly, AI can bring great strides to the gaming industry. (key words: used correctly)

The og luddites were against mistreatment and job losses from new tech. Not just from it existing. And were also made fun of and labeled as "future haters".

 

[darthdiablo]

Silver linings


This is the second time you've called AI skeptics luddites and I gotta say I really don't appreciate that.

Do you follow any artists on social media or know any personally? Do you see or hear the screaming from the rooftops of people whose work is being stolen and their livelihoods destroyed? Seen interviews with the people developing these tools saying that it's actually morally good that vast swaths of people will lose their jobs because the future requires it? Have you seen wave after wave of professional artists enraged and in pain and out of work because corporations have a new shiny toy that gives them the ability to not only torch the workforce but also steal from them at the same time? Seen the AI proponents who insist it "democratizes art" while seeking out and bullying real artists for not using it? Hell, there are professional artists here on Famiboards who have already started losing work to generative AI.

One of the hardest-hitting things I've seen about it is that AI has now removed our confidence that anything was actually drawn/painted by a person. Anytime we see anything pretty now we're counting fingers and looking for odd smudges in the hair. It's removing the privilege of just appreciating people's work by having us immediately question whether it's even real. And that's fucking sad. Can't even enjoy art anymore without wondering if it was created by a program designed to steal. It's like the systematic removal of anything we as human people might be able to enjoy, and people are saying it's good because corporations will be able to make so much money with it though. Professional artists are even beginning to simply bail on the industry because they're being so devalued by this that it feels like there's no point. Like teachers quitting en masse in the American south due to political movements destroying their faith in being able to do what they do. It's sickening and disheartening to see them put us and our work through a fucking meat grinder and then watch people cheer them on because new fancy technology.

tl;dr: Taking the position of "well it's the future!!" while people's livelihoods are being removed with it and our lives' work are being stolen through it and then calling us luddites for speaking up is kinda insensitive imo.


I guess that's also my answer to the thread's question.

Edit: also fuck Neil Druckmann

Let's be clear, I do sympathize for those whom livehood is threatened. I acknowledge that artists are one of the first to be hit by effects of generative AI. I don't think my field (software engineer) will last forever either, coders will eventually be obsolete.

The way I see it with things that threat my livehood in general, through the years is to adapt to the changing times (something I've done on a constant basis for the last 20 years in this career). I've gradually adopted using CoPilot and so far it've been a huge boon to my productivity. There are over 50 software engineers in the company I work for, the majority also uses such a tool on a daily basis.

I've seen friends I consider creative people (granted, not in professional capability) use AI tools to creates images, that are more imaginative than something I could come up via prompts. They used to do Photoshop stuff before. Again, I understand that this doesn't necessarily transfer over well to professional capability because who would pay for AI-generated content today?

I know that this response will come off as weak/feeble, but I don't know what I else I can say really. It's either me going on a crusade against AI, or adapt with the times. Historically, humankind has adapted with the changing technology, time after time again and again. Internet has transformed our society - in many ways for the worse (I genuinely believe if not for social media, we wouldn't have seen raise of fascism in certain circles in our country). However, also in other ways, Internet changed our society for the better. "Adapt or die" as they say.

 

[MinxyEMF]

The term 'AI' is a misnomer right now. An AI in the sense that we're discussing can't think for itself, it can only regurgitate what it's been fed by a human beforehand. Sure, it can mix it around in interesting ways, but in the end it's still just giving back the information it's already been given.

One could argue that's the same for humans too, but the difference there is critical thinking. Since we're intelligent creatures that can think for ourselves, we know what makes a good story, or what makes a good drawing. We don't just regurgitate what we've been fed, we ruminate on it. We think about what it implies and how it makes us feel, and we employ it in artwork to express and evoke people and situations in ways that other people can understand. AI can do this too, sometimes, but it does it almost by accident - it doesn't fundamentally understand what makes a creative work good or bad.

I think, after a certain point, that'll cease to matter. Someday I think a sufficiently advanced AI trained on sufficient quantities of great artwork and prompted correctly will be able to make new great artwork that feels organically made nine times out of ten. But I think right now it's the key difference. AI can't understand art, so it'll always be worse, morality aside, and there needs to be someone who does on hand to correct it at the very least. Otherwise you're left with a bunch of out-of-touch corporate suits trying to get a dumb machine to make Something the Kids Will Like™ and that's going to be a disaster every single time.

 

[JazzyFuture]

Generative AI should never be used. Not in video games, not in TV, not in ads, not even for memes. End of discussion.
AI upscaling low res textures looks horrendous and I hope remasters stop using it. You can really tell which textures in 3D All Stars were manually done and which ones were just thrown into the AI upscaler.

Spoiler: 3D All Stars Mario 64 example

That being said I do worry that "AI" is just becoming a buzzword that will be used to keep out of touch silicon valley shareholders happy, which will make consumers get turned off from completely normal uses of tech, like animation blending or enemy pathfinding.

 

[chocolate_supra]

That being said I do worry that "AI" is just becoming a buzzword that will be used to keep out of touch silicon valley shareholders happy, which will make consumers get turned off from completely normal uses of tech, like animation blending or enemy pathfinding.

I will agree with that as far as AI goes. Stuff like filling in motion paths between keyframes or enemy responses in games, even some of the ways it's used in tech like DLSS is really interesting and cool. But what's being called AI now, the way corporations are using it and the people who are investing in it and the conversations being had about it, all seems to be the scummy uses. Even google is now implementing it in their searches, and you can't turn it off. I've even had google give me a pop-up message to scroll back up and check out their AI-generated summary instead while I was scrolling through the webpage results I was looking for. They're pushing it hard and investing in it hard and shaming people who don't wanna take part and yeah, it really is turning a lot of us off to the whole idea. Even potentially good uses of the idea.

 

[N 2 Deep]

If they develop models off their own proprietary work or use an open sourced based repository that the AI is trained off of, no issues whatsoever

But if it is trained off of data that is public but likely not belonging to them, then yeah I have issues

Using AI for creating code with general models is fine, since I do think AI's best purpose at the moment is as a coder that can help you create and craft code

 

[aus89]

Like any tool, tool has potential to be misused. AI is one such tool. I'm not like others who seem to be laser-focused on being anti-AI specifically (a form of ludditism)

If used correctly, AI can bring great strides to the gaming industry. (key words: used correctly)

You wanna get real for a second, because I think you don't know what the luddites actually were.

The luddites were NOT "anti-technology" or scared of change or any of the condescending aspersions you put on people who are concerned about AI, and actually their concerns were scarily relevant to today:

"The Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.” "

so yes, consider me a luddite - the tech is based on theft. They need to pay for the work they're using to power their tech. Plain and simple. that's it. GenAI companies are defrauding artists with the backing of big corporations to destroy art as a career and put all mainstream expressions of art into the hands of corporations and billionaires.

There is no ethical or correct use of the tech at this point in time, it is a fraud.

BTW did Anyone notice since Scarlett Johansson exposed OpenAI's fraud there's been a TON of corporations and press stories about how AI is already here and happening and you can't stop it and it's actually great really... gee wonder who spent a ton of money on marketing this week...

 

[switchum]

To me, the answer is that AI should be used as a tool to ASSIST humanity, rather than REPLACE it.

So, as a tool that benefits graphics or speeds up development (like how IIRC, Breath of the Wild’s open world used some AI to create the landscape), it’s totally fine.

However, when stories, characters, gameplay concepts, or art become created by AI, that’s when we put real human artists at risk. I think that’s disgusting and I’m totally against it.

In short: AI should help us accomplish our artistic goals, but it shouldn’t be the one creating them. Think of it like a super-effective paintbrush… it’s fine when it’s used like that, but when it tries to replace the actual artist, we have a serious problem.

 

[undefined]

"Adapt or die" as they say.

Let’s face it, programmers are just using it to autocomplete trash code on the fly instead of copying trash code from the internet, there’s not much “adaptation” going on there

For now I’m still googling coding stuff as these tools might introduce subtle bugs. I think some of the autocompletion looked pulled from Stack Overflow but at least on the website there’s probably some under-voted comment calling out some problem on the code there

The tech is just not that great currently but companies will try to shoehorn it anyway

MDN can now automatically lie to people seeking technical information · Issue #9208 · mdn/yari

Summary MDN's new "ai explain" button on code blocks generates human-like text that may be correct by happenstance, or may contain convincing falsehoods. this is a strange decision for a technical ...

github.com

 

[Raccoon]

famed animator James Baxter put it best in a comment on this YouTube video (itself a great resource for this discussion)

Fantastic rant, I love it! And you're absolutely right. I love how you underline the intent of the artist. Those who would seek to replace artists with machine learning and AI clearly don't understand what art is for. Replace stuff that people don't want to do, or can't do. But people get joy (and their livelihood) from creating art, and they want to do it. It's one of the things that make us human. I'm no Luddite, and I love using new tools to create my animation. But when it starts to encroach upon the fulfillment that I get from creating, then no thanks! You might argue that this is just interpolation and chill out. But my response to that is just wait, this is just getting started.

 

[meatbag]

AI as a tool is morally neutral. The models that modern AI companies are throwing around are not. They are built on actions that I believe are both unethical and only legal through loopholes and ignorance. That is a big pile of fuckery.

Honestly the best post on this topic. It is true that we shouldn't conflate all instances of AI with generative AI models that work by stealing from millions upon millions of actual human creators.

AI is a tool, but it can't be the artist.

 

[chocolate_supra]

BTW did Anyone notice since Scarlett Johansson exposed OpenAI's fraud there's been a TON of corporations and press stories about how AI is already here and happening and you can't stop it and it's actually great really... gee wonder who spent a ton of money on marketing this week...

Wait I thought that dispute was settled, actually:

 

[aus89]

Honestly the best post on this topic. It is true that we shouldn't conflate all instances of AI with generative AI models that work by stealing from millions upon millions of actual human creators.

AI is a tool, but it can't be the artist.

I don't think anyone actually does conflate all instances of AI with genAI - i think those who like to silence criticism of genAI like to say that's what's happening as a strawman to shut people up though...

 

[darthdiablo]

Let’s face it, programmers are just using it to autocomplete trash code on the fly instead of copying trash code from the internet, there’s not much “adaptation” going on there

For now I’m still googling coding stuff as these tools might introduce subtle bugs. I think some of the autocompletion looked pulled from Stack Overflow but at least on the website there’s probably some under-voted comment calling out some problem on the code there

The tech is just not that great currently but companies will try to shoehorn it anyway

MDN can now automatically lie to people seeking technical information · Issue #9208 · mdn/yari

Summary MDN's new "ai explain" button on code blocks generates human-like text that may be correct by happenstance, or may contain convincing falsehoods. this is a strange decision for a technical ...

github.com

If coders are using CoPilot to autocomplete the code, that's not really a good use of the tool then. How would the coder know the autocompleted code is actually doing what they intended for the code to do?

As I've state elsewhere, tools can be misused.

Coders who just google to complete code - before AI assisted tools exist - isn't going to get far in my field at all. Same goes for those who just uses AI tools to "autocomplete". Our team would see incompetence miles away and say goodbye, you don't belong here. We don't have time to babysit those who don't have the basic fundamentals down. Besides, we have 4 rounds of interviews to weed out bad coders like that (or those who might not be a good fit otherwise like cultural fit)

We use CoPilot to make ourselves more productive - we don't use AI-assisted tools to "auto-code" the stuff for ourselves.

 

[aus89]

I also find it incredibly hypocritical that while Sony pushes gen AI as a tool to cut costs etc... they also are sending legal letters to AI companies warning them against using their content, saying “unauthorized use” of Sony Music content for AI systems denies the label and artists “control and compensation” of their work.

The letter, according to Bloomberg, called out the “training, development or commercialization of AI systems” that use copyrighted material, including music, art, and lyrics.

Funny they feel the need to be protected from the tech but want to force it on everyone else when it helps their profits...

 

[chocolate_supra]

I also find it incredibly hypocritical that while Sony pushes gen AI as a tool to cut costs etc... they also are sending legal letters to AI companies warning them against using their content, saying “unauthorized use” of Sony Music content for AI systems denies the label and artists “control and compensation” of their work.

The letter, according to Bloomberg, called out the “training, development or commercialization of AI systems” that use copyrighted material, including music, art, and lyrics.

Funny they feel the need to be protected from the tech but want to force it on everyone else when it helps their profits...

Reminds me of how the NRA events have very strict no-guns policies with metal detectors and security and the works.

 

[kasparov77]

ai to assist programmers on problem solving and overall code development: completely fine, as long as it doesn't delve into replacing programmers

ai to generate any sort of artistic expression (game plot and main dialogues, characters, environment, props, weapons art and concept art, music, you name it): not assistive ai, it's job replacement. this is a problem that should be avoided at all costs.

ai to assist developers on setting up automated interactions that aren't key to the game's plot (eg. a feature that allows NPCs to interact with the player and/or each other with generated text AFTER the main dialogue in/out of cutscenes is laid out). ideally, you'd want to hire a writer for the main dialogues and IF the dev team sees the need, they could use generative ai for small tidbits of conversation npcs might have with the player or themselves.

ai to assist game testing: as long as it's used for small builds, small interactions and not as a tool to replace game tester jobs, why not? I feel like you'd still need an actual person to try the game out before release and give their feedback. I know companies are using early access and similar methods to make users be the actual beta testers but I still think even before an early access release you'd want a company hire dedicated for testing. I mean, if the game (even on early access) launches in a really dire state, you wouldn't want to even show it to customers, right?

ai for marketing: this is complicated, what are we talking about? using ML algorithms that help reachability and potential customer interest? well, this could be fine for small companies that don't have the capital to invest in marketing as it's one of the most cost-intensive parts of gamedev. but for big companies? I mean, for them in the first place that alone wouldn't be enough for marketing, they'd want a team focused solely on that.
that's where we arrive at the second thought: marketing needs designers, video producers and whatnot, artists in general hell, even developers for making say, a website to help with the game's propaganda. if ai is used (by a mid-high capital company) to replace the need for this kind of human labour, this is a serious issue that should be avoided.


"But what if my company is merely two people in a garage with the budget of last year's yard sale?"
Then take your time. You don't need to rush out a game in 2-3 years just because you can launch it earlier by replacing human labour with ai.
You have a limited budget to the point you can't hire an artist? learn a skill or two, it will take more time? yes, will it probably be not as great as someone with years of experience? yeah. But it will be unique, it will be way more accomplishing to you since you (and your pals) made it, you didn't use a button to generate something for you without any thought or effort and while that may sound irrelevant to some, you WILL be acknowledged by it. People WILL appreciate what YOU created and you'll have all the rights to everything you made.

 

[Lord Azrael]

There are some good uses of AI. DLSS for example, or how the artists of Spider-Verse developed a tool to help apply filters and stuff.

But generative AI... I don't think there's a single use of it I can get behind tbh. First of all, the stuff it produces is always going to be worse than a human. A large language model doesn't have an opinion, can't exercise critical thought, is incapable of saying anything about anything. It can only produce vapid tripe, not commentary or insight. Art without intent is hardly art.

But second of all is obviously the jobs it's costing. Fuck that. Even something like the industrial revolution that cost tons of people their livelihood ended up improving overall work conditions (though if I was alive at the time, I'd certainly be advocating for the transition to be handled differently). Generative AI on the other hand is even worse; it benefits no one but execs who want to cut costs. Customers get worse products and workers lose out on creative fulfillment.

Even if you fix the ethical issue of using stolen art to train your model, and instead train it on your own dataset, it's still going to cost jobs with no benefit to anyone but business owners. The end goal should be automating all the boring grunt work so that humans can focus on the fun artistic stuff, not replacing them ON the fun artistic stuff. It's some seriously dystopian shit.

 

[komicer]

It felt like it was just really recently that the topic of AI in games have been discussed. As always, as someone with a toe in the gaming industry, this is a rather depressing topic. Definitely not the topic that I come to Famiboards for.

For most cases, the main reason for 'AI' in games development is to 'cut cost'. Guess what costs the most in game development? Wages. While you might not already see it in the AAA games, GenAI is already here and replacing creatives in game development. Absolutely horrid. And the sad thing is that... I don't think the mass public really cares.

 

[crazybenjamin]

I kinda feel like at this point, there's really no stopping it completely. Best we can do is try to contain it as best as possible and make sure it's used as best it can even if the possibility is slim, like automation in blue collar jobs

An outright ban on AI could also lead down some very slippery slopes while those companies find loopholes and use it anyways

Sorry if this post is very pessimistic lol

This is the part that's giving me pause. What would such a law even look like in practice?

 

[zumaddy]

AI being in charge of gritty busywork no one likes to do: Yeah!

Big companies using AI to replace human jobs, creativity and talent for slop: UnYeah!

Sadly we can't trust most of the big gaming execs not to do the latter. I wish things were different and this is something we could be excited about without reservations, but it's just another capitalism moment.

 

[TreIII]

I just see it inevitably as the AAA gaming market's last "bastion" for a means to try and maintain their productivity and profit margins. Hooray, you and your fellow suit-wearing execs can pocket more cash by means of cutting artists, writers, programmers, actors and others that are just "chaff" you do not require any more! The "AI" can do it!

But inevitably, infinite growth is not possible, no matter much you may try to cut out even the human element that was holding you back from maximum profitability.

 

[lexony]

Outside of the depressing talking points surrounding AI, my two cents as a Indie Dev:

For Concepting and drafting games Generative AI can be a really great tool. But like with anything Digital I think you will get better results when you first start Brainstorming on paper, just because there are less tools available to you and you have to be creative.

Otherwise tbh I don‘t know how to code without Copilot anymore.

 

[lexony]

Although this is a trend I will try to avoid all trends - Shigeru Miyamoto

Technology doesn't dictate what is good or bad at the creative level, it only determines whether the larger companies have enough margins to expand, or what is known as "cost-cutting", so encouraging the industry to go back to "smaller, more sophisticated" game development would undoubtedly be beneficial.

I am very certain that devs at Nintendo are using AI in some form already, even if it is just as an assist tool for coding or drafting. I mean they technically use it already if the next Hardware supports DLSS, but I get that is not what you really meant.

In regular Software Development/Coding AI got already quite common and otherwise Devs of all kinds of fields are very eager to experiment with it, at least of what I‘m aware of.

 

[rick_C]

My concern is those genAI stealing the works from the creators when train it, which have copyright problem.

 

[PixelKnight]

Like any tool, tool has potential to be misused. AI is one such tool. I'm not like others who seem to be laser-focused on being anti-AI specifically (a form of ludditism)

If used correctly, AI can bring great strides to the gaming industry. (key words: used correctly)

You have completely misunderstood the luddites and bought into the common misconception (that’s been spread and thus led to the modern usage) that it was rejection of technology and progress full stop. Something very convenient when industry wishes to dismiss reasonable concerns about staff and quality. What the Luddites rejected was abuse of technology and corruption that led to both job losses (and thus communities built around them) but also inferior goods that abandoned the skill and quality of actual craft. Something very relevant to the art side of AI. Where AI is used to take the drudgery out of something and assist people with complex tasks and computing, it’s already doing that worldwide, for both good and ill. But where generative AI models replace creative work just because it’s cheaper (while also ripping off artists it’s scraped the work of), there’s plenty of room for criticism around breach of copyright, job losses and loss of quality there, not that the beancounters care as long as the word count and required number of animation frames are hit for a lower cost. That creative and craft aspect, loss of skills and the human element etc is where the concerns of the luddites were reasonable, but it’s sure suited industry to depict them as backwards, just as people dismiss such concerns from creatives today.

The Luddites were members of a 19th-century movement of English textile workers who opposed the use of certain types of cost-saving machinery, and often destroyed the machines in clandestine raids. They protested against manufacturers who used machines in "a fraudulent and deceitful manner" to replace the skilled labour of workers and drive down wages by producing inferior goods.

-wiki