Spencer downplayed worries about AI streamlining game production, highlighting moderation’s role.
Artificial Intelligence dominates current news discussions, with the rise of ChatGPT and the potential for general AI causing concerns among CEOs and AI pioneers like Geoffrey Hinton. While AI has been part of game design for years, the emergence of AI art programs and procedurally generated dialogue raises new questions about its impact on game content and development teams.
“We’re not giving AI a significant focus in that area,” he remarked. “Policy and enforcement are where AI takes center stage for us. When it comes to network safety and the immense volume of activity on Xbox Live, it’s nearly impossible for a human to monitor it all. Therefore, leveraging technology to ensure appropriate conversations occur with the right individuals is a crucial intersection between Microsoft’s AI capabilities and gaming.”
We are witnessing the emergence of various concepts like Ubisoft’s Ghostwriter, responsible for generating repetitive dialogue or “barks” for non-playable characters (NPCs), and Blizzard’s Diffusion tool, trained on the company’s Warcraft artwork to create concept sketches for upcoming games. As game development costs continue to rise annually and gamers generally resist spending more than £60 on a new title, it begs the question: Will something inevitably have to change?
Regarding the increasing interest in utilizing ChatGPT-like models for NPC dialogue creation, Spencer expressed a similar cautious approach. He stated, “We haven’t discovered the point where large language model AI intersects with enhancing the fun factor in video games. I’m not ruling it out, but I prefer to empower our teams to explore that as an expanded aspect of their creative realm, focusing on finding more enjoyment before considering efficiency implications.
