AI And Gaming: Why Companies Don’t Want You To Know The Truth…
*Photograph by Pavel Danilyuk Via Pexels.Com
Artificial Intelligence, or “AI”, has been all over the news and not in a good way. Here in my not-so-little world of gaming and media, where art, visuals, and creativity are paramount, the use of AI has become a huge topic of debate. Netflix received criticism for allegedly using AI image manipulation of actual photographs in a crime documentary. Magic: The Gathering recently admitted to using AI art despite vehemently assuring its players it would not. AI has even been used to replicate characters using an actor’s actual voice or likeness, which is in my opinion both ethically and economically concerning. Even Adobe, a program that is widely-used especially in creative work, had to walk back a sudden change to its policy that let its users know that their personal data and files would be free for the company’s AI system to graze for information.
Many artists and professionals in visual and creative media are rightfully concerned. Some have even made attempts to root out AI image use and have companies formally apologize for it, which has unfortunately resulted in certain styles of art being wrongly accused. These are just the most recent tip of the iceberg however, as AI has had numerous major blunders in nearly every industry, not just gaming.
However, the efficacy of AI is not the major issue here, as much as it is fun to make jokes about some of the worst examples of AI being silly or outright terrible. It will get better at what it does as it learns. The major issue is what these companies aren’t telling you about why they are moving to AI despite all of the red flags, ethics concerns, and countless dystopian movies about the dangers of making a computer too smart. From 2001: A Space Odyssey, where “HAL” famously flexes its autonomy by refusing to open a set of doors, to the Matrix series, which features a machine-run overworld, media has been obsessed with the potential downsides of AI, but the biggest and perhaps most realistic downside is right under our noses if we read between the lines. Let’s be clear, I’m not fully anti-AI. It has its uses. I’m just cautious and concerned about some of the ways that big tech is talking about it in disingenuous, shrouded ways.
Before we continue, let’s define “AI”, at least from a technical engineering perspective. AI is broadly defined as a system that “works by simulating human intelligence through the use of algorithms, data, and computational power” with the goal being to “enable machines or software to perform tasks that typically require human intelligence, such as learning, reasoning, problem-solving, perception, and language understanding.” This all seems great. This type of system is well-situated to figure out some of the world’s unsolved problems that people simply do not have the coordinated brain power to solve. However, AI does not stop there, as companies are beginning to use AI more and more to replace creatives, artists, and humans in general, as opposed to using AI simply to help people be more efficient at their existing jobs. It’s the difference between an animator being able to use technology to make their job easier and a computer being able to completely do their job for them. It will always be artificial and a simulation of human intelligence, yes, but it also takes seats at the table in an already messy economic picture.
So what’s really going on here, specifically in the gaming industry? If AI can be used to help people do their jobs better, what’s the issue? Well when you realize that AI is on the rise at a time when unemployment in the gaming industry is also on the rise, it’s hard not to read between the data. Layoffs have hit the 10,000 mark already this year, surpassing 2023’s numbers halfway through the calendar year, but companies have widely brushed off the layoffs as an unfortunate necessity. What companies will tell you about why they are turning to AI is that they are trying to “improve their operations” or work on “transforming software development.” When forced to explain themselves in Court however, the language gets much closer to the reality of the situation, albeit coated in positivity about how AI will benefit everyone.
In a recent motion to dismiss filed by Google’s lawyers, they describe the benefits of AI as follows: “It is already beginning to revolutionize the way we use technology, serving as a companion that can help research, summarize, and synthesize information; brainstorm ideas; write original creative or factual text and software code; and create images, videos, and music.” What is crucial to remember as a context to these corporate platitudes is that these words are being used to defend lawsuits by artists and others who have fought back against their copyright-protected content being used as an AI learning tool, and let’s be clear there have been a large number of lawsuits.
The undercurrent here, beneath the political, corporate speech is that AI will save money on labor for things that traditionally have been reserved for human creativity. To put it in buzzwords that most major companies are intentionally avoiding, it will replace people. Top AI executives, including the CTO of OpenAI, have tried to lay the groundwork for justifying this direction by stating that AI will only replace jobs that shouldn’t have been jobs in the first place, which is not only an obvious feedback loop but is a slap in the face to creatives and associates, in gaming spaces and otherwise, who have spent their lives and supported their families doing some truly excellent creative work. What she is saying is that any job that can be done by a machine should be. How convenient for a Chief Technical Officer of an AI company to say, whose job performance is arguably better the more costly people she replaces. When looked at in the broader context of layoffs in the gaming industry, it feels callous to say the least.
Will AI make creativity more accessible to the average non-creative person? Maybe. Will they enable large companies to hire barebones staff for even major creative projects? Absolutely. Is it worth that personal cost? To a company whose only thought is money, yes, and that is why the defense of AI in creative spaces is largely corporate and not individual. It is also an inherently different question than the use of AI for fields that do not involve creative work, as there can be helpful uses for it. Creativity, however, is such a human thing that it perhaps warrants some extra consideration before going all-in on replacing it with artifice. In a recent interview, actor Neil Newbon of Baldur’s Gate 3 fame–an incredibly talented actor who has also lent his voice to such other major titles as Resident Evil: Village and Detroit: Become Human–expressed some nuanced concerns that “as cool as AI can be in so many things, like talking robots and such, it's a slippery slope to lose the best parts of our humanity. One of them is art.” As an individual who has offered his voice and likeness to so many great projects, it is easy to see how he and others like him have much to lose if AI spreads without parameters, even if its use brings the promise of opportunities.
The CEO of Microsoft AI recently came under fire for coming out and saying that in his mind, everything on the internet is fair game for AI to poach, and that it has been since the 90’s. He went on to confirm, without any sort of qualification, that they have AI scrapers combing the internet even on sites that explicitly state they do not want their content to be used as AI fodder.
This should give everyone on the AI train pause, even if there are benefits to the technology for the average person’s hobbies and creative projects.
*Photograph by Pixabay via Pexels.Com
While people have pointed out other concerns with the burgeoning rise of AI technology, such as the significant power grid consumption and its questionable ethics if left unregulated, these appear to be of little concern to big companies, who can offset the increased cost of electricity and R&D with the steady money they gain from the layoffs. In the midst of massive firings, the top players are doubling down rather than slowing down. Recently, Elon Musk has planned an AI evolution with a massive, power-consuming gigafactory in an economy where some have uncertainty keeping their house lights on.
It all begins to become clear the more I read. Big companies, including those in the gaming world, will continue to lay people off as soon as they can replace a person with even a barely recognizable version of the human product. This is not your average pearl-clutching, nostalgia-fueled fear of losing jobs to new technology. This is a fear rooted in a coalescence of the facts into an undeniable reality: Big gaming companies are laying people off or shutting down studios even after making successful games, and why not? With AI in the mix, it stops making sense for shareholders to allow studio heads to continue running with their current staff when they can spend a fraction of the overhead having AI scrape it, along with other stagnant pools of data from dead studios, and make a cheap copy.
When viewed in this light, Phil Spencer’s guarded language surrounding the controversial layoffs at Xbox, about needing to run a “sustainable business”, become easier to see through. Sustainable means less human cost, more algorithms. It is difficult not to be concerned about AI being an impossible siren song for shareholders to ignore. However, if the industry is going to survive, it is an allure that companies need to resist, otherwise it will eat itself alive. Maybe shareholders are part of the problem, maybe it is just the way of things, but some have found success going against the grain. Privately-owned studios and companies, such as Larian Studios, have been successful without massive layoffs. However, even the owner of that studio, Swen Vincke, has credited that success partially to not having shareholders and having the time to really sustain a full team and make a great product. When your bottom line is only money, it’s tough not to use AI. It’s a cheat code with a high human cost.
In the end, the games, books, movies, and other creative media that speak to me are made by people. They are made with love, time, and effort and draw from a person’s experiences. I personally don’t want a narrative experience created by an algorithm, especially not if it means that being creative is no longer a viable job prospect for many. This is not to say that AI cannot have its uses for individual creatives to assist in their own process or for personal use, but AI replacing entire workforces, departments, or creative teams–which it appears to already be doing–is a grave concern not only for the job market but for the relevancy of studios choosing not to use AI or choosing a higher ratio of human staff.
In the end, do I think that we will be living in a machine-filled matrix in the next 30 years with a need for Neo to come save us? Absolutely not. Do I think that we should be cautious about AI taking over for human creativity? 100%. That is already happening. The question that remains is how to move forward. Will creativity become an unhuman simulation staffed by servers? Or will companies see the value in human experience, even if it costs far more than running a prompt?
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