In recent days, when you hear about Activision Blizzard, you likely think about the eternal struggle that’s been going on between Microsoft and Sony about the purchase of said company. Thankfully, we’re not talking about that today. Instead, we’re talking about something that the company’s current head, Bobby Kotick, regards AI in gaming. Many of you know that almost every game out there has AI in one form or another. It’s part of how things like enemy combat work. However, as VGC notes, he’s thinking about using AI on a much larger scale than it’s being used today.
So what did he have to say about it? Well, here’s a snippet:
“One of the things that I’ve experienced over the last year is that same feeling that I had when I saw that first Macintosh, about how meaningful the impact of AI would be on society, both positive and negative. But for what we do, I think it will have a profound positive impact on the things we’ll be able to do in game development for our players. It will enable us to do things that we haven’t been able to do for a long time.”
He later said AI could help revitalize a franchise like Guitar Hero. He didn’t say how, but you could interpret his words on that subject in many ways. For example, there are ways that AI could help create the music that gamers would play in tracks. Or using AI to help make music with players and things of that nature.
No matter what he feels, the reason that Kotick thinks this would be helpful, it’s a very slippery slope that Activision Blizzard would have to walk.
We say that because AI is being used in numerous industries to potentially replace people’s jobs. An excellent example is the current writers’ strike in Hollywood. One of the things that the writers wanted was for the studio heads not to use Ais to write scripts for shows and films in any manner, and they refused. Then, reports came out that the studio heads wanted to use the AI to write scripts, then just have the human writers come in and “rewrite” them for less money.
So now, imagine having an AI doing the work of a human in a gaming studio. That would cause lots of worry and problems over time.
Not to mention, Bobby Kotick has already proven not to have the well-being of his staff as his priority. So who knows what he might have “envisioned” in the AI space.
