In a theater set off to the side of this week's Game Developers Conference, representatives from big tech companies and venture capital firms spoke about, among other things, their enthusiasm for generative AI. Many of the attendees over in the main convention halls don't feel the same way: 52% of respondents to a recent GDC survey said that they think generative AI is bad for the games industry, and only 7% agreed that it's a good thing.
One of the most direct expressions of this divide came from Moritz Baier-Lentz, head of gaming at Lightspeed Venture Partners, a firm with investments in Anthropic and a number of other AI companies. Lightspeed is a major investor in game studios, and has a stake in Epic Games.
During a group discussion about how the games industry can "capitalize on shifting trends in customer engagement," Baier-Lentz said that he's "shocked and sad" that the industry has not embraced generative AI, noting that the gaming business has previously pushed new technology forward. He accused anti-AI game developers of "demonizing" a "marvelous new technology."
As for why there's so much negative sentiment around AI among game developers, Baier-Lentz reckons that after record layoffs in the wake of the Covid hiring boom, people are worried about their jobs.
Yeah, I'd say that's one of the reasons they don't like it! Others include the use of artists' work without consent, environmental issues, the quality of AI output, and the feeling that automating culture production can only result in what is now commonly called "AI slop."
Big tech's response to those attitudes, as expressed in the panels I attended, is that the tech is imperfect but still new and improving rapidly, and that rather than contracting the industry further, it will (in ways not yet entirely defined) expand what's possible for game developers, enabling faster iteration while still requiring the employment of human cleverness and creativity.
In a panel about AI trends and opportunities, for instance, Nvidia VP of applied deep learning research Bryan Catanzaro said that nobody at Nvidia writes code without AI help today, but added that software engineers still have to know what they're doing, because using AI in a "dumb way" will get a dumb result.
As if planned by a political cartoonist, another expression of this rift in the games industry could be seen on the GDC expo floor, where a Campaign to Organize Digital Employees booth promoted unionization right next to a cluster of AI startups, such as Tesana, which promises that its users can build entire games simply by "chatting with AI."
