Xbox's New AI Partnership Is Stirring Up A Heated Debate On Social Media

The layoffs have more to do with the terrible management and poor business analysis and strategies of companies (guided by top management) than they have to do with AI. All these layoffs are happening well before the AI thing and have always been a thing. For example in case of Bungie, they are shocked that adding to their staff to help milk a game for the 6th year in a row somehow failed.
Regarding the creativity, games haven't been creative for ages now. Almost every game you play, you have seen something like it before. Also, the applications of it specially in terms of NPCs is very relevant. I am tired of how many times I ran into the same NPC in AC Odyssey only with a slight change of hair color.

You can't be mad at the existence of new tools and expect to be taken seriously. Each developer will have to use it well depending on what game they want to make. AI is not magic.

I couldn't care less if AI has been used to create a game - whether that's writing, voice acting or even helping build games. I don't think the world is 'worse' for replacing 'people' in many areas of 'work'. There was fewer roles in the 'leisure/entertainment' business 150yrs ago because there was so much 'manual labour' required that got replaced by Machinery/automation.

AI can cut costs and significant time - creating the world, the 'life' and the dialogue/noise of a game. Walk through a 'market' and hear the AI chatter that makes it feel more 'alive' than hearing the same few Dialogue lines they recorded. More believable NPC's instead of 'scripted' but limited Behaviours etc etc.

at the end of the day, I care more about the final game I play and if AI 'improves' both the quality and quantity, helping to speed up the development cycle without sacrificing the 'Quality', I couldn't care less if the characters are voiced by Actors or AI, couldn't care less if the environment was constructed by Humans or Procedurally generated etc.

UE5 uses AI, DLSS uses AI and Procedural Generation is a form of AI too to - not 'hand crafted' where every bush, tree, object was 'placed' by humans in the game....

I've listened to many takes on this subject and i kind of feel like after everyone's thoughts I find myself agreeing with Asmingold as much as I dont actually want to. I don't like the thought of AI going forward but it's here no matter how much I hate it. The biggest issue is everyone's bigotry on why its ok to lay off fast food workers and postal workers etc. in favor of quicker AI and robotics but jobs specifically in the games and film industry should be seen as the hill to die on.

That's a complex issue. AI will have a major impact in jobs not only in the videogame industry, but everywhere. It might be our jobs eventually.

If AI tools are used to replace humans, that will result in major turmoil in society in general.

However, if AI tools are used to enhance the productivity of workers without cutting jobs, that's a totally different story.

So, whether that move is good or bad, it depends on how the technology will be used.

One of my close friends worked as a checkout assistant at a certain Supermarket and was laid off last year, just as they added more Self Service Checkouts. I refuse to use Self Service Checkout now.

Not the same I know, but I can understand how certain tech used to replace staff can be difficult to accept.

game development times are taking too long. hope this helps with that. just don't give em the key to the nukes.

@JokerBoy422 it won't stop in the games and film industry, though. At first, automation impacted low-skilled, underpayed professions — which was bad enough, but in capitalism we tend to prioritize the bottom line of businesses over the well being of people. However, now we're seeing something even scarier: AI is coming for high-skilled, creative, knowledge-based jobs. If not even game developers are safe, who is safe? Doctors? Lawyers? Engineers?

How will society work in a post-employment world? How all that people will earn a living? What's the point of developping video games in the first place if a significant part of the society is not only unemployed, but completely unemployable because they can't compete with AI?

And who benefits from that? Tech billionaires who already have pretty much infinite money?

It's inevitable. Genie is already out of bottle and you can't put him back.
If X company will use AI during game development and lower time/budget of AAA game while Y company will refuse to use AI and will make more expensive game with higher budget then X company will be more successful. It's just how things work.

Houdini (for example) was introduced to allow developers to create huge lands of gaming space in small amount of time. Did anybody employed 100+ more devs to create this by hand instead? Nope. Nobody is that stupid. But even Houdini requires "touch" from developer after generating land. Same here.

@JokerBoy422 Problem in particular with game industry is that, the development of games has become so so long now that a large chuck of gaming community probably won't mind getting next entry in their franchise 1-2 years sooner if it means some 50-100 people lost a Job in a studio. It is dark but kinda true.

I was going to say what could be bad about AI, until I read that people have lost their jobs. Yeah I don't like that they've cut back on human workers, but I do like AI as it can maybe reduce stress from workers maybe and make things easier. But I don't know. I'm kinda in the middle.

@RazputinAquato no I totally agree with you but it doesn't matter at the end of the day. Most people can't tell the difference between real art and AI art. We already have AI doing word processing work in the industry already. As an example the dev apology the Gollum team put out was written by AI and no one could tell until it leaked that that was what happened. We've had AI doing lots of jobs already and even though most will never admit it, I have a feeling we've already been playing games and watching movies that had AI writing in them because some of these games and movies have such bad writing that I can't imagine that amount of trash came solely from a human brain. Not to mention the AI tools used in many games we have already known about for years that gave us AI created classics such as the GTA Definitive Trilogy.

I'm of the belief that a good chuck of all the layoffs we've seen this year was preparatory for new AI jobs. Don't need the Destiny composer anymore if they can have AI make an amalgamation of all the previous work they have the rights to. Again this sucks, but nothing we can do about it but watch it play out. Don't like AI products? Let them know with your wallet. The companies doing this don't care about anyone's Twitter rants as long as the cash flow keeps chugging along.

@BrilliantBill and with that I see a total win. In the short term AI is just a helping tool to help devs get games out. Let's take advantage of it while it's still innocent. The real issue is when the total product is AI made. Then we can all have this bigger discussion.

As far as people being laid off that really does suck but every industry is having worldwide layoffs. We need to stop this bigotry that only game dev jobs matter.

As TTRPG gamer I like the idea of AI being used in games to handle players going "off script" in ways of Devs didn't expect.
But finding that line between "stuff devs didn't think off" and "stuff people actually make" is going to be the problem.

The "money men" will keep pushing than line further and further into the "human" end to maximise profits.

skyrim with the chatGPT mod is cool,
looking forward to be able to really talk with NPC's

If anyone here studied Economy this is like early 20 century were poeple was afraid that they will lost there jobs to machines, but in the end they just had to adapt and improve themselves, yes normal workers got laid off but they got replaced by technicians and engineers......
This IA phase is a truth happening instead of fighting to pend it a little poeple need to adapte to it

What poeple dont understand is the macroeconomy and how the balnce always return the companies need costumers that can pay means salaryman and salaryman need companies to satisfy his needs

I'm firmly against. That is my semi informed (fine, uninformed) opinion. Humans all the way!

Human expression is why I engage with art. AI generation is the antithesis of that. No interest in AI generated ideas.

Wont someone please think of the children!!

I am very much in favor of AI use. Screaming 'they took our jobs' at every new innovation is not very progressive for the industry. Game development desperately needs something to remove some of the length of development time. If this helps at all it will be beneficial to us as gamers.

The current climate for games is 4-5+ years development for most AAA games. Studios (especially independent studios) can't afford to take risks with that much dev time. As a result we get more remakes, licensed games, formulaic structures, etc.

Using AI doesn't necessary mean it replaces the human element. Dialog for instance, AI can lay some of the groundwork while creative humans can correct, adjust, add/subtract to it as they see fit.

Also the biggest takeaway from this partnership is that it is not a mandate by xbox to force their studios to use it. It is simply another tool at the disposal of the studios and they can choose to use it if they desire. More tools and options should never be seen as a negative.

I own my own Civil Engineering company, and for manhole imaging and sewer cctv surveys, we now use an AI system who watches them and reports any faults, instead of an engineer. The AI system is far more accurate and takes a fraction of the time. It has been really awesome from a business owners perspective

In my business the humans are letting down the side … AI really is transforming accuracy and cutting down workloads… that said I will miss the humans when they are gone. In Canada we hear of the Universal Basic Income as the politicians are thinking ahead when AI changes everything…

@Sakai from a business owner's perspective... which is the only perspective that matters in our societies.

with AI writing story/dialogue and quests, it'll make Ubisoft games look inventive.... AI doesn't have a bone of originality.
Games are art, and a computer without a soul can't create that. Just like any AI imagery is just soulless horrible derived garbage.
The good, and defintely the best, games will avoid this stuff like the plague.
Makes me lose hope for Xbox as a studio.

@RazputinAquato myself and other business owners employ people, so it is an important perspective, just like everyone elses

@Sakai very important indeed, but I wasn't referring to small businesses. And while I appreciate that you employ people, the subject at hand is how business owners will employ less and less people due to AI.

@RazputinAquato it's a distinct possibility. But it's also possible more jobs will be created in fields like AI, coding and IT, which in theory could offset alot of it. But I am not sure anyone has the answers right now as it's too early

Given Microsoft's moves during and after the Activision acquisition saga, it's pretty obvious that this is a cost cutting measure and they will use the AI partnership to layoff more people which is a disgusting move.

@RentedPanda ssssshhhhh, they're listening....

New technology leads to lost jobs, its a side effect of progress. Imagine if someone said "We need to shut down this internet thing, it will cause people to lose their jobs!"

Why are both tweets by women in their early 20's? You would think the younger generation would actually understand that this is the future. As always completely out of touch.

@JokerBoy422 At first I thought , "the absolute irony of this clown complaining about bigotry," then I realized you used the term wrong. Carry on!