Video game support developer Keywords Studios tried to create a game solely using artificial intelligence but failed because the technology was "unable to replace talent".
Think of AI like computers and spreadsheet software in the early 80s. I bet a lot of accountants were pretty freaked out about what this new technology was going to mean for their jobs.
Did technology replace those accountants? No, but companies probably didn’t need as many accountants as they did before. AI will likely reduce the number of programmers that a company needs, but it won’t eliminate them
Really I think it’s kind of the opposite. There are plenty of jobs awaiting higher skilled labor. Just as Excel didn’t hurt accounting, it gave many people who weren’t trained I’m accounting to take on more tasks than they would have.
Case in point: I’m using ChatGPT to help me write cover letters. I make sure to proofread them and sometimes it hallucinates my expertise, but it makes it a lot faster.
I mean that’s already happening at some big companies now.
Will it last? My guess is no, but they’ll enjoy saving the money that they would pay human beings in the mean time.
My hope is just that they’ll suffer losses due to a drop in product quality and start struggling, but let’s face it, the big tech companies are almost never the ones’ that are actually hurt by their decisions.
And in that regard it’s no different than any other productivity tool or automation, I have seen software being bought that immediately Eliminated 80 odd jobs.
At least in video games it’s probably going to be more that scope increases while headcount stays the same.
If most of your budget is labor, and the cost of the good is fixed, with the number of units sold staying around the same, there’s already an equilibrium.
So companies can either (a) reduce headcount to spend a few years making a game comparable to games today when it releases, or (b) keep the same headcount and release a game that reviews well and is what the market will expect in a few years.
So for example, you don’t want to reduce the number of writers or voice actors to keep a game with a handful of main NPCs and a bunch of filler NPCs when you can keep the same number of writers and actors but extend their efforts to straight up have entire cities where every NPC has branching voiced dialogue generated by extending the writing and performances of that core team.
But you still need massive amounts of human generated content to align the generative AI to the world lore, character tone, style of writing, etc.
Pipelines will change, scope will increase, but the number of people used for a AAA will largely stay the same and may even slightly grow.
Folks really didn’t understand how AI will work. It’s not going to be some big we’re dropping 1000 people.
It’s going to reduce demand over time.
I’ve heard it as “No one is losing their job to AI, but they will lose their jobs to someone who is using AI.”
Think of AI like computers and spreadsheet software in the early 80s. I bet a lot of accountants were pretty freaked out about what this new technology was going to mean for their jobs.
Did technology replace those accountants? No, but companies probably didn’t need as many accountants as they did before. AI will likely reduce the number of programmers that a company needs, but it won’t eliminate them
Really I think it’s kind of the opposite. There are plenty of jobs awaiting higher skilled labor. Just as Excel didn’t hurt accounting, it gave many people who weren’t trained I’m accounting to take on more tasks than they would have.
Case in point: I’m using ChatGPT to help me write cover letters. I make sure to proofread them and sometimes it hallucinates my expertise, but it makes it a lot faster.
Also not going to happen. It’s massively overrated.
I mean that’s already happening at some big companies now.
Will it last? My guess is no, but they’ll enjoy saving the money that they would pay human beings in the mean time.
My hope is just that they’ll suffer losses due to a drop in product quality and start struggling, but let’s face it, the big tech companies are almost never the ones’ that are actually hurt by their decisions.
And in that regard it’s no different than any other productivity tool or automation, I have seen software being bought that immediately Eliminated 80 odd jobs.
It will start with going from 5 writers to 3, or going from 10 animators to 6.
Then 10 years from now as it gets more advanced we will be down to maybe 1 writer and 2 animators.
It’s still crazy to me that like half of Across the Spider-Verse was AI generated
At least in video games it’s probably going to be more that scope increases while headcount stays the same.
If most of your budget is labor, and the cost of the good is fixed, with the number of units sold staying around the same, there’s already an equilibrium.
So companies can either (a) reduce headcount to spend a few years making a game comparable to games today when it releases, or (b) keep the same headcount and release a game that reviews well and is what the market will expect in a few years.
So for example, you don’t want to reduce the number of writers or voice actors to keep a game with a handful of main NPCs and a bunch of filler NPCs when you can keep the same number of writers and actors but extend their efforts to straight up have entire cities where every NPC has branching voiced dialogue generated by extending the writing and performances of that core team.
But you still need massive amounts of human generated content to align the generative AI to the world lore, character tone, style of writing, etc.
Pipelines will change, scope will increase, but the number of people used for a AAA will largely stay the same and may even slightly grow.
Folks really don’t understand how AI will work. It’s not going to be
somebigwe’re dropping 1000 people.