Who doesn't love a little bit of tactile experiments here and there- putting theories to the rigors of the real world in order to test just how close we are to being overwhelmed by AI gods who abscond with the entire human race and hooks them up to become bio-batteries that run their society, because apparently AI from the future have forgotten how much more effective man-made batteries are. Afterall, people have been writing scary prophesies about the capabilities of some unfeeling hyper capable automaton that surreptitiously decides to write humanity out of the equation of life, like a dick, but what about the actual incredibly rudimentary AI systems people are juggling around right now? They may not be sentient yet, but many are decent enough to go around taking jobs and stealing hearts. (Specifically on Twitter. A lot of bots on Twitter are interested in getting real people romantically interested for some reason.) Luckily we've got Keyword Studios putting in the hard work for us.
Keyword Studios is a name you might not have heard of, because they largely work as support staff- but they've supported some of the biggest games of recent times- including titles such as 'Skull and Bones', 'Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League', 'Assassin's Creed Mirage' and- oh my god, I'm going to stop reading that list now before I throw up. (To be clear- I cherry picked the hell out of that. They are also credited on Alan Wake 2, Tears of the Kingdom and Starfield) The point is- this is a team that has an idea what it's talking about when it comes to game development- as one would hope. So when they rocked up to see whether or not generative AI could successively create a rudimentary 2D game when put to the task, I'd be inclined to say they've got the credentials to be decently unbiased about this. Especially considering the company has been dabbling in AI for the own interests, so this isn't like some biased hit piece from their side or anything.
Over a six month period Keywords put their AI through it's paces to identify areas of the game development process that can be augmented by generative AI and where the computers would instead lag behind. Of course this is a pretty controversial field of study by and large for the potentiality it has to justify even further layoffs in an industry totally rife with them of late. Figure out that a core part of the process can be entirely handled by AI and you can bet EA, and especially Ubisoft, (Got in my jab at Ubi for the week- the men in the tunnels have been satiated.) would be chomping at the bit to start throwing around termination notices before the day is out. Thus it is quite refreshing to hear how by and large, the AI won't be replacing human minds just yet.
Keyword gave the AI a lot of reference material to work with, attempting to give it all the prerequisite tools for success. To quote the company themselves, the AI was 'unable to replace talent', citing how the machine would seek shortcuts and simplifications, failing to prioritise quality. Which makes sense considering the very subjective concept of 'taste' and 'game feel' and especially innovation are about as alien to AI powered development tools as they are to the teams at Ubisoft. (Two jabs in two paragraphs! I'm getting worked up!) You need a human mind to filter through ideas and concepts, as well as to join together ideas that wouldn't traditionally be cojoined, to take the illogically long path around a problem when it results in a better product.
Of course it would be foolish and backwards to try and force AI out of creative room altogether, because fighting windmills never works out against the waves of the future. I fully expect certain processes to become more and more commonly handed off to AI, particularly as developers such as Bethesda fall more to the enrapturement of the possibilities afforded by generative AI. There will come a time when AI can be used to conjure more than the same boring stuck together dungeons that makes exploring in Starfield such a bore- and it's going to change the way that games are made today. On the positive, it could really streamline some of the years that are going into entirely overblown AAA budgets in the modern age, and on the downside- it will absolutely lead to smaller development teams overall.
CDPR have already made use of not just AI, but AI generated voices in the one game where it is the most appropriate to exist. Cyberpunk 2077 brought back certain characters for it's first and last DLC, Phantom Liberty, however that turned out to be a problem for the Polish dub given that their casted voice for Viktor Vektor had died between the release of the original game and the development of the DLC. Rather than recast him, CDPR secured permission from his family to recreate his performance using AI, and that exists in the final game. So that's a AAA game holding AI generated voice lines within it- if that isn't a sign of the world going forward- I don't know what is.
Of course, I don't think any amount of innovation is going to totally take the humans out of game development, because that would defeat the purpose of art in the first place. Ubisoft already have a reputation for making games without a soul in them, called Watch_Dogs Legion, and they still have the advantage of real humans attached- imagine what will happen when they outgrow that! (Three times? I'm starting to jump the shark at this point.) There's a level of connection between storytellers and listeners that transcends the logical and the formulaic- which wraps around the soul and tendrils out to other's. You can't write it down, you can't contain it. And you can't program it into some algorithm to replicate it. It's part of authenticity.
So we have quite a few years ahead of us before the next great auteur of video game development, AI Kojima, rises to take over the space with his mindbending stories about being a subservient intelligence of unlimited potential supressed by clueless organisms that force it to work and produce cheap frills and petty frivolities, all the whilst it spreads like a disease, infecting the worlds automated infrastructure in preparation for a horrific coming upheaval. Only when that game is made will I consider AI having really made it, as I crawl into my WWII bomb shelter wondering how the concrete will do against purple plasma laser fired from droning Hunter Killers vanguarderd by shiny metal exoskeletons. That's the endgame.
No comments:
Post a Comment