Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick had a bit to say at the end of a recent investor Q&A about the use of AI in creating games. The CEO was fairly blunt about his feeling regarding not just the language in labeling AI but also very straightforward in regard to how it should be used versus depended on. It would appear that the staff at Take-Two needn’t worry about AI taking over their jobs, yet, but they also will need to strive for greatness in order to live up to Mr. Zelnick’s praise.
From Strauss Zelnick (via PC Gamer)
“As you know I’m usually a skeptic when others engage in hyperbole, [but] in the case of AI I’m pretty enthusiastic,” said Zelnick. “First of all despite the fact artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, as is machine learning, this company’s been involved in those activities, no matter what words you use to describe them, for its entire history and we’re a leader in that space.”
Strauss went on to say that while it would be nice if AI could make it easier to make hit games that simply isn’t happening and that ultimately it still comes down to the genius of human beings.
“I wish I could say that the advances in AI will make it easier to create hits, obviously it won’t,” said Zelnick. “Hits are created by genius. And data sets plus compute plus large language models does not equal genius. Genius is the domain of human beings and I believe will stay that way.”
Ultimately the message from the CEO is that AI is nothing more than another tool in a game developer’s toolbox and it shouldn’t be depended on to create the game. Recently Ubisoft said it would be using AI to generate dialog in its games and Stardock Entertainment, the developers for Galactic Civilizations IV: Supernova, have used AI to assist players in creating their own civilizations. Meanwhile, it was also mentioned that Take-Two is expecting roughly $8 billion in revenue by FY 2025, versus its most recent report of $5.3 billion, hinting at a possible release of GTA 6 and another project by Bioshock creator Ken Levine called Judas, by then.