A.I Will Push Me Away From New Video Games
I find the topic of A.I and the future of technology to be one of the most fascinating talking points possible. I rewatched Ex Machina for the third time last night, and it feels more salient than ever. A.I is already at the point of being able to make any form of art we can imagine. We see things like Sora making a video of two pirate ships sailing in a cup of coffee with great ease. And sure, right now some of it might look or sound a little janky, but give it a year or two and you won’t be able to tell. For some inexplicable reason there seems to be more focus on making A.I create art rather than breakthroughs in fields like medicine. Maybe it’s just my social media algorithm, and I’m missing some amazing news in medicine. If so, please feel free to email me.
Whether you like it or not, A.I is coming for your favorite form of art. We can ask many philosophical questions like:
Is it really art?
What even is art?
Does art without human experience have any less “soul” or meaning than art made by A.I?
After laying off many of its artists, Activision recently forced its remaining artists to learn how to use A.I as a support. The skin you see pictured above was made (at least partially) by A.I and sold as part of a bundle which costs roughly $15.
But instead of asking any deep questions like those, I want to ask you a very personal and simple one:
Does it matter to you?
And I can say for myself, unequivocally so, it does. Video games are like a party of all art forms. There’s music, writing, acting, visual arts and directing that goes into each game. And it’s amazing to see what comes out of this culmination of effort, energy, and experience. Effort, energy, and experience. Three things a computer will never know anything about.
And you might say I’m making this argument out of a sentimental place; but I do think there’s a beauty in things like this finding their way into a finished game.
It’s the human element. It reminds us that these games were made by people cramped in an office working their asses off. And the hard work justifies them being in that office in the first place. I’ve seen some people online saying that my thought process is “romanticizing the creative process”. But if you are out there with a great book idea or song idea in your head, and you don’t even want to make it yourself, isn’t that just life’s way of pushing you to do something else? It’s like me wanting to learn Spanish. I would love to know how to speak Spanish. But do I want to open up books and Duolingo and get to work? Fuck no. That doesn’t sound appealing to me at all. Oh well, guess I will never speak Spanish. And guess what? I can live with that.
But now we’re at the point where people who don’t want to put work into art can get their ideas out at ease. And at first that doesn’t sound like an issue, but it becomes an issue when peoples jobs are lost. And we’re already seeing that.
If you were a video game company that had A.I making key components of your games, why would you give 25 year old Shigeru Miyamoto a job? Why pay another salary and more insurance? Just have your computer program make a mascot. I wonder how many creative geniuses are out there who will have their careers neutered by A.I.
I think certainly by the 2030s we will see many games, movies and books advertised clearly with “No A.I used” on the covers. And then of course one of these companies will lie about that, and it will leave everyone in a confusing blur on what’s real and what isn’t
Maybe I’m in a spoiled position, seeing as Nintendo (my favorite gaming company) doesn’t seem interested in A.I right now. And I also love retro games. So I think once A.I becomes the norm in games, I can safely stop buying and playing new games, and just focus on my back catalog. That could be incredibly naive of me to say; maybe there will be a stunning A.I made video game that comes out and gets a 97 on Metacritic and I’ll be tempted to play it. Who knows?
I’m not anti-tech at all. And I’m not a deeply religious or spiritual person. So I don’t feel like even the most advanced artificial intelligence would theoretically always be beneath us for “lack of a soul”. But I do believe in effort, energy, and experience.
Three things a computer will never know anything about.
