Support NeoGAF

[Lunatic_Gamer]

In a post to the Microsoft Developer blog, Xbox's general manager of gaming AI Haiyan Zhang announced a "multi-year partnership" with Inworld aimed at building "AI game dialogue and narrative tools at scale."

That's all a little vague, but Zhang gives two examples of specific tools that will come out of this partnership: an "AI design copilot" that turns "prompts into detailed scripts, dialogue trees, quests and more," as well as an "AI character runtime engine" that will allow for "dynamically-generated stories, quests, and dialogue for players to experience."

The tools generated by the Xbox/Inworld AI partnership will be optional for devs to use, but it's still a controversial topic. It was only in September that a months-long strike by Hollywood screenwriters secured protections against the use of AI writing in TV and cinema, which workers feared could lead to job losses and poorer, more generic writing across media.

Elias Toufexis— who you know as Deus Ex's Adam Jensen and Starfield's Sam Coe—decried the announcement on Twitter. "If you want to start a voice-acting career, don't bother," he wrote, adding that "All those jobs of nameless background NPCs that gave us all our start in the industry… they're all going away. I'm already bitter."

"Another fucking strike is coming," concluded the actor, in response to a tweet asking if videogame actors were unionised.

That was hardly an uncommon reaction. Other actors, including God of War and Genshin Impact's Shelby Young and Xander Mobus—voice of Persona 5's Joker—took to Twitter to register their discontent. "Seems like a massive waste of money and resources that could otherwise go to humans who actually craft the games we play?" wrote Mobus, noting that the quality of the content generated by AI writing bots is generally subpar compared to human-authored work.

It's not just actors upset at the news, either. Developer Rami Ismail offered up a bleak summation of the direction of the games industry and AI with the words "Lots of people are going to get fired, games will get worse, and C-suite will get millions." Jill Schar—lead narrative designer on The Lamplighters' League—encouraged fellow devs to get caught up on the SAG-AFTRA strike and its relationship to AI, noting that "Actors are the front lines right now in the struggle against corporate greed and unethical uses of AI."

So not a particularly positive reaction from the devs and actors that Xbox is ostensibly setting out to help with tools like this, which I have to say must have been very predictable a long, long time before the announcement went live on Microsoft's site. Nevertheless, massive companies seem to be as committed as ever to introducing AI into game development. I suspect Toufexis is right and we all have a long fight, and several strikes, in our future.

Xbox sparks dev revolt with new AI writing partnership: 'Lots of people are going to get fired, games will get worse, and C-suite will get millions'

"Another f****** strike is coming."

www.pcgamer.com

 

[Unknown?]

People will say that it's good people are becoming redundant.

 

[Sleepwalker]

People will say that it's good people are becoming redundant.

Generally people suck, so they don't care until it's their turn on the chopping block.

 

[Bernardougf]

Well its going to be really fucking easy to any AI to write better than this fucking milleniuns and gen z writers.. thats for sure .. they all sound like fucking npcs anyway.

 

[Guilty_AI]

not like their games didn't already feel AI generated

 

[Unknown?]

Well its going to be really fucking easy to any AI to write better than this fucking milleniuns and gen z writers.. thats for sure .. they all sound like fucking npcs anyway.

Sorry to break it to you but those AI are coded and fed information from those people and write the same.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Wonder if the AI will be phoned in contractor work as well.

 

[baphomet]

Maybe the AI can develop a game that scores a 90+?

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I don't care about the acting profession one iota. It attracts narcissistic do nothings. Ancient Greece had that profession pegged correctly.

 

[bitbydeath]

Time for a strike, I thought the recent one for actors would cover them.

 

[Iced Arcade]

Yeah have to be so disconnected and brain dead to think this was a cool announcement right now. Smh

 

[NikuNashi]

Wonder if the dev cycles will still be 5 years.

 

[ComputerBlue]

 

[Elder Legend]

Do people really think that Microsoft is the only one that's going to be utilizing AI in some shape or form for game development? If you think Nintendo or Sony won't be utilizing it then think again. This is the state of the industry and where it's heading whether you like it or not.

 

[ReBurn]

It seems someone just learned how the world works.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

MS is always the disruptor of videogame technology. Always pushing the medium forward.(said no one ever)

this A.I. push is the same as the Cloud push (Crackdown 3): Is coming from MS and not Xbox itself. So you know.

 

[rhodesianshepard]

Do people really think that Microsoft is the only one that's going to be utilizing AI in some shape or form for game development? If you think Nintendo or Sony won't be utilizing it then think again. This is the state of the industry and where it's heading whether you like it or not.

Microsoft is one of the leading pioneers of the AI industry. So, yeah, obv Nintendo or Sony will follow suit eventually, but they don't have the resources Microsoft has to utilize AI like this

 

[cartman414]

I don't care about the acting profession one iota. It attracts narcissistic do nothings. Ancient Greece had that profession pegged correctly.

You're being pretty cavalier yourself if that's how you see it.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Microsoft is one of the leading pioneers of the AI industry. So, yeah, obv Nintendo or Sony will follow suit eventually, but they don't have the resources Microsoft has to utilize AI like this

Sophy?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Time for a strike, I thought the recent one for actors would cover them.

and still they (actors) haven't solve that issue.

 

[Taur007]

Maybe the AI can develop a game that scores a 90+?

Forza horizon 5 said hello btw

 

[Elder Legend]

Microsoft is one of the leading pioneers of the AI industry. So, yeah, obv Nintendo or Sony will follow suit eventually, but they don't have the resources Microsoft has to utilize AI like this

Right, but you proved my point anyways, that others will follow suite and MS will set the standard.

 

[bitbydeath]

and still they (actors) haven't solve that issue.

This is true.

 

[Arcadialane]

Sorry devs, cant be worse than the shit you make now

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Do people really think that Microsoft is the only one that's going to be utilizing AI in some shape or form for game development? If you think Nintendo or Sony won't be utilizing it then think again.

Polyphony is already implementing A.I.

This is the state of the industry and where it's heading whether you like it or not.

the issue here is that MS is pushing A.I. in the same vein as Open A.I, Midjourney, Nvidia, Google...from a "Big Tech" perspective.

 

[Fredrik]

So it’ll be nothing then, MS always back down when things are getting noisy. We’ll have old school quest design until the end of time with ! and ? over characters heads and NPCs repeating themselves when their dialogue tree is at the end.

 

[StreetsofBeige]

Like anything in life when a technological advance goes in full force:

- Companies notice a new tech can lead to faster and better quality at lower cost. Some try it, some dont
- Lots of complainers feeling they are entitled to keep their job forever
- Fear is spread the quality will be worse
- As time passes, the general public accepts it
- The product quality is pretty good
- The public wonders to themselves.... damn., if only this cool stuff came out 20 years earlier

During this time, the complainers could had adjusted their job skills and changed careers, but they are stubborn and many go down with the ship.

 

[MarkMe2525]

I don't know about this "games will get worse" rhetoric. The other claims... maybe, time will tell.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Big Booba woman, influencer, dev, gaming journo or whatever, said that she was not going to play any game in which that company is involved.

the implementation or use of generative A.I is already a huge clusterfuck for Illustrators, concept artists, animators, photographers and even musicians.

For example, the movie studios wanted to scan actors and basically own and use that avatar for free. For the writers, you could train the A.I. with the work of an specific writer and produce new "content" with the same "voice".

This technology will absolutely need some kind of regulations.

 

[Kamina]

What worries me is how long it will take to make more and more jobs obsolete?
Artists, Writers, Programmers, QA, Admin, Sales, Purchasing, Controlling, Accounting,…
If AI replaces the need for human workers across the board, what will be left for us to do and how can we afford the products the corporations are producing?

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

Like anything in life when a technological advance goes in full force:

- Companies notice a new tech can lead to faster and better quality at lower cost. Some try it, some dont
- Lots of complainers feeling they are entitled to keep their job forever
- Fear is spread the quality will be worse
- As time passes, the general public accepts it
- The product quality is pretty good
- The public wonders to themselves.... damn., if only this cool stuff came out 20 years earlier

During this time, the complainers could had adjusted their job skills and changed careers, but they are stubborn and many go down with the ship.

I dont think the issue is about "complainers", change carrers or adjusting job skills. Is about the integration of A.I. in the economics of all different industries.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

Microsoft is one of the leading pioneers of the AI industry. So, yeah, obv Nintendo or Sony will follow suit eventually, but they don't have the resources Microsoft has to utilize AI like this

Did you see that Twitter has it's own AI now?

All sorts of companies are buying it in, Twitter is a weird example in some ways since Elon Musk fired all the staff well in advance of using AI, and has brought the AI onboard to do a role that wasn't previously fulfilled by a person.

But, the point is that Nintendo and Sony absolutely do have the resources to do this. In fact, the required resources are quite simply a willingness to pay the fee - Inworld are a business seeking to sell services to game developers, not a business that is seeking funding to develop AI.

 

[Mr Reasonable]

What worries me is how long it will take to make more and more jobs obsolete?
Artists, Writers, Programmers, QA, Admin, Sales, Purchasing, Controlling, Accounting,…
If AI replaces the need for human workers across the board, what will be left for us to do and how can we afford the products the corporations are producing?

That's just one industry you're thinking about too, pretty much every industry is going to be affected. First up will be the creative roles, I expect but it'll expand it's reach quickly.

If I was a parent of a teenager who was weighing up their options of what to study, if they mentioned studying art or design, I'd be asking myself if it was responsible to let them go study to gain skills that over the next few years will become something that fewer and fewer people will be prepared to pay for.

 

[ChuckeRearmed]

Media: "Xbox sparks dev revolt"
Devs: "...."
(1-2 people with a banner): "Factories will take our jobs!"

Sorry to break it to you but those AI are coded and fed information from those people and write the same.

Except when generating something people ask the prompt. No need to hire a person anymore whose contribution would be writing a story about Gen Z in debt fighting mexican crime syndicates and telling bad jokes

If I was a parent of a teenager who was weighing up their options of what to study, if they mentioned studying art or design, I'd be asking myself if it was responsible to let them go study to gain skills that over the next few years will become something that fewer and fewer people will be prepared to pay for.

Well, I constantly ask this all those people who do ethical studies and so on. Why the hell they are going there?

 

[plip.plop]

how does the saying go?...

 

[Flutta]

No worries, Philip W Spencer III will save the day.
Any time now….

 

[cartman414]

The problem with AI is that it assimilates based on what has come before. It's a closed circuit. Society and human nature are ever evolving and changing.

You know what are the most replaceable by AI? Executives.

 

[Xtib81]

AI is inevitable, whether people want it or not.

 

[xrnzaaas]

I'm personally surprised that companies like Microsoft announce partnerships like this. You know that the reception will be mostly negative - the employees and freelancers will fear their jobs and the gamers will speculate about the games being even more lifeless and generic. It would be much better to hide it and have people discover this years later (or not at all). Maybe they'd even be positively surprised if AI-generated material turned out to be better than from weak writers or designers.

 

[StueyDuck]

When are people going to learn that movie productions and game development aren't the same.

AI will most likely be a net positive for game development, if used correctly. It can allow for more (and better) writing, dynamic storyline, quicker turnaround with world development, better enemy/friendly ai and so on and so forth.

Not everything goes straight to replacing voice actors.

 

[64bitmodels]

You know what are the most replaceable by AI? Executives.

THIS!

Writers should keep their job. Even the worst stories have an element of human touch to them AI cannot replicate. The thing that makes films like The Room and mockbusters so funny is the fact that humans sat down and actually wrote/acted/animated these films and then put them out on store shelves as if people would actually buy them.

Executives (and investors) don't do shit other than command lower rank people what to do. They have no talent, no insight, no special skill that makes them desirable. They just have the money to buy themselves to the top. I say they should go away first, but since they have the power, the writers are getting shafted instead. It's a shame to see many people here cheering this on/ being hostile to writers who wrote some of their favorite games over the past 5 years. You guys could at least not be assholes especially considering that the robots are coming for your jobs too.

 

[Kataploom]

Hmmm I get AI as support tool, I myself use it for my programming almost every day even if just to make a quick consult or create a form with some fields in Angular since it's just repetitive tedious task that never changes... But in a creative field I wouldn't like the support of it... You know, there's something inherently human in art that would disappear and there's no way to take it in AI made art, in the case of writing it's not just the product but the feel behind it...

 

[Pejo]

"AI slop art, AI slop models, AI slop writing. Just consuuuuuuuuuuuuuume it." - Corporations

 

[Unknown Soldier]

The average human written game plot and dialogue is total shit these days. The AI will probably end up being better TBH

This is why the Hollywood writers went on strike too. They didn't fear the AI replacing them, they feared the AI being better than them

 

[64bitmodels]

They didn't fear the AI replacing them, they feared the AI being better than them

I've used chatGPT enough to know that this is just plain false. stories written there are pretty basic and mediocre.

 

[Z O N E]

With game development getting longer and longer and more expensive, it was only a matter of time before AI was brought in to help with this.

Let's take a look:

TLOU P2: 6 years development time.
Ghost of Tsushima: 6 years development time.
GOW Raganarok: 5 years development time.
Zelda TOTK: 6/7 years development time.
Resident Evil 4 Remake: 5 years development time.
Elden Ring: 5 years development time.

You get the picture.

Sony and Nintendo will follow MS and other Publishers in this too.

 

[Kenpachii]

If u are in game development, u probably better off starting to learn some other profession sooner rather then later. AI will wreck that industry.

 

[Fafalada]

What worries me is how long it will take to make more and more jobs obsolete?
Artists, Writers, Programmers, QA, Admin, Sales, Purchasing, Controlling, Accounting,…
If AI replaces the need for human workers across the board, what will be left for us to do and how can we afford the products the corporations are producing?

Physical labor is mostly safe from automation on foreseeable future. Things like plumbing, construction etc.

 

[systemr123]

not like their games didn't already feel AI generated

They probably use Bing ai or chat gpt already to write these woke scripts. So it’s just about cutting out the middle man/woman/other, which is just a part of natural evolution.

I have my own IT consultancy company but we have to change to these new developments also, and probably within a decade or something our traditional work is not necessary anymore but that’s life.

So instead of complaining the script writers here should evolve with the times and try to learn to do something else that is or will become relevant to society.

 

[mrmustard]

It could be interesting, because they could make games that go after your interests. For example you could choose in the options if you like shorter or longer dialogues, if you are into woke shit and so on.