Neil Druckmann Addresses Potential and Issues Of AI Within The Gaming Space

There are several controversies surrounding the gaming industry right now that can’t be simply ignored. One of the biggest ones is the “bubble” that seems to have burst via companies like Xbox, Sony, and The Embracer Group, where they would buy up companies, expecting to make a big profit from them, and then gut them where they don’t. Then, there are the issues of AI-generated content, which many feel could spell doom for the gaming industry in different ways. To that end, Neil Druckmann provided some interesting insights into where he fell on this issue. It might not be where you think, though.

Sony held a special event called the “Creative Entertainment Vision,” and Neil Druckmann was one of the people talking about various topics. He naturally talked about game development as a whole and how things were going to progress going forward. That’s where the topic of AI inevitably came up:

“AI is really going to revolutionize how content is being created, although it does bring up some ethical issues we need to address.”

Those “ethical issues” revolve around AI literally replacing the people who are hired to make games. We’ve already seen this happening with both art and voice acting, and many fear that it won’t stop there as gaming companies, including the ones we talked about before, will try to use it to “cut costs” versus trying to make quality titles.

Even with these issues, Druckmann felt that the use of AI in places like storytelling could be incredibly beneficial:

“With technologies like AI and the ability to do motion capture right from home, we’re reducing both costs and technical hurdles, opening the door for us to take on more adventurous projects and push the boundaries of storytelling in games. This evolution is truly empowering creators to bring their visions to life without the traditional obstacles.”

This is where the “fine line” comes into play. Right now, pretty much every video game company in the world uses a type of AI to help make its games. Specifically, they use AI to control non-playable characters so that they know how to do certain things and interact with the world. That type of AI is generally accepted as a godsend.

But if taken too far, and used to create things like art and audio, it could lead to several problems, which Druckmann seems to be aware of, yet also seems to be fine pushing forward to see what happens.