Amazing. A nuanced, non-pitchfork-brandishing take. I really appreciated the thoughtful look at what, specifically is actually wrong with AI. I really appreciated this read
I think AI could easily be used in a positive way and do think it could help make games faster to develop but because of it handling some small amount of the small stuff while actual people handle the more important stuff. This means making games take 3 years instead of 4, or 4 instead of 5, not making games take 6 months to make. It's all about understanding the limitations of the tech and allowing developers to use it in ways that would benefit them and in ways that they want to, as opposed to firing some and forcing who are rest to make up the difference with an AI. The problem is execs want to cut those jobs and force it, instead of letting the developers make it work in a specific way for them, similar to what you talked here.
Great article Alex. Rather funny we both posted about AI almost at the exact same time today!
The only question it did not answer is: can I use AI to generate character art and background art for a visual novel and not be stigmatized by it? :D (I kinda know the answer)
If you pull an image generating AI off the shelf then you can’t be sure it’s not trained on stolen assets. So people will be upset because you could potentially be generating assets that look like an artists stolen work. You’ll also have to declare it on Steam and other stores who now require that. Which could mean the stigma results in your game not selling.
If you sourced an ethical model or made your own and were honest about that. Then you would avoid the concerns of copyright infringement. However people might still have issues with the compute cost and the environment impact.
I have a feeling that the studios promising faster, cheaper, more will come to realize that the player base doesn't necessarily want a new game every 6 months. The attention economy probably contributed to some of this mad rush, but as we're hopefully coming out of that, we'll be able to devote more attention to a few things deeply than to many things broadly.
I'm hoping that we'll find creative, responsible ways to incorporate AI tech into the industry, not just for mass producing assets and taking away jobs. LLM-powered NPCs in a murder mystery game, for example, would be a great way to add replayability (as well as options for creative humans to create different characters).
Who knows, maybe we'll get to a point where we're paying voice actors for using their voice likeness!
I'm hopeful and cautious about where this will all go! Thanks for the great read!
Great read! And I agree, the line between human and machine inputs in the production of digital content has been gray for a long time. And the closer you look the grayer it gets. IMO modern AI can do a lot of neat tricks when the output is data, but when the output is human enrichment (games, movies, music, etc) the process will always require a human, hands-on craft approach - some AI is helping that craft and some of is detrimental..
Amazing. A nuanced, non-pitchfork-brandishing take. I really appreciated the thoughtful look at what, specifically is actually wrong with AI. I really appreciated this read
Thank you!
I think AI could easily be used in a positive way and do think it could help make games faster to develop but because of it handling some small amount of the small stuff while actual people handle the more important stuff. This means making games take 3 years instead of 4, or 4 instead of 5, not making games take 6 months to make. It's all about understanding the limitations of the tech and allowing developers to use it in ways that would benefit them and in ways that they want to, as opposed to firing some and forcing who are rest to make up the difference with an AI. The problem is execs want to cut those jobs and force it, instead of letting the developers make it work in a specific way for them, similar to what you talked here.
Great article Alex. Rather funny we both posted about AI almost at the exact same time today!
Yes I saw your article go up and I was like “what a coincidence “. Also good that we’re speaking from the same areas of concern too.
Excellent article!
The only question it did not answer is: can I use AI to generate character art and background art for a visual novel and not be stigmatized by it? :D (I kinda know the answer)
It depends on what stigma you want to avoid.
If you pull an image generating AI off the shelf then you can’t be sure it’s not trained on stolen assets. So people will be upset because you could potentially be generating assets that look like an artists stolen work. You’ll also have to declare it on Steam and other stores who now require that. Which could mean the stigma results in your game not selling.
If you sourced an ethical model or made your own and were honest about that. Then you would avoid the concerns of copyright infringement. However people might still have issues with the compute cost and the environment impact.
Bit of a loose loose sadly.
Maybe there's a business idea here: AI not trained on not-stolen data to generate graphics for indies ;-)
Tbh. It’s cheaper to just buy stock assets. AI models are expensive to run.
I have a feeling that the studios promising faster, cheaper, more will come to realize that the player base doesn't necessarily want a new game every 6 months. The attention economy probably contributed to some of this mad rush, but as we're hopefully coming out of that, we'll be able to devote more attention to a few things deeply than to many things broadly.
I'm hoping that we'll find creative, responsible ways to incorporate AI tech into the industry, not just for mass producing assets and taking away jobs. LLM-powered NPCs in a murder mystery game, for example, would be a great way to add replayability (as well as options for creative humans to create different characters).
Who knows, maybe we'll get to a point where we're paying voice actors for using their voice likeness!
I'm hopeful and cautious about where this will all go! Thanks for the great read!
Great read! And I agree, the line between human and machine inputs in the production of digital content has been gray for a long time. And the closer you look the grayer it gets. IMO modern AI can do a lot of neat tricks when the output is data, but when the output is human enrichment (games, movies, music, etc) the process will always require a human, hands-on craft approach - some AI is helping that craft and some of is detrimental..