How do foreign game developers view the future of AI?

Source: Touch Music

Author: wait

From Web3, blockchain to Metaverse, there is always a topic at the annual Game Developers Conference (GDC) that sparks heated discussions. At the GDC at the end of March this year, AI became the object of heated discussion among game developers.

There are at least 20 speeches at GDC this year with AI as the theme. Companies such as Unity have also released news about the development of AI tools, and some manufacturers have also conducted various offline demonstrations. At first glance, this seems to imply that the game industry has a fairly unified stance on AI, firmly believing that it will develop rapidly. In fact, game practitioners have mixed views on AI. Some people show almost fanatical admiration for AI, while others are skeptical, contemptuous, and even angry about it.

In a presentation titled "The Future of AI in Gaming," Steve Collins, Chief Technology Officer of King, Paul Stephen Nook, Creative Director of Candy Crush Saga, and the Several guests from Sony, Unity, and Level Up talked about how game companies can use AI technology. Twenty minutes before the event, the house was already packed, with dozens more queuing outside, as if hoping someone would leave early to make room.

After many years, GDC returned to offline, and nearly 30,000 people flocked to the venue in San Francisco to participate in this grand event

Embrace

Collins explained King's stance on AI in detail. Following the acquisition of the Swedish AI company Peltarion in 2022, they are eager to transform into an "AI pioneer company." Today, the company mainly uses AI technology for testing, so that the game can adjust the difficulty of the level according to the level of different players. Collins revealed that "Candy Crush Saga" has more than 13,000 levels and more than 230 million monthly players, so the development team must rely on AI to test the game. "If there aren't millions of players playing the levels all the time, it's hard to test them. In that case, the AI acts as a human and does the stuff."

"To provide a personalized gaming experience, we need to employ millions of designers and testers, which is simply not realistic...that's why we are increasingly using automated processes."

But Collins also stressed that King sees AI as a "tool." "The designer first uses AI to design and adjust the level, and then the tester will use AI to test the level to see if they can achieve the effect we want."

After the acquisition, King established an AI and machine learning team of more than 50 people to support the research and development of the company's products

As we can see from another AI keynote, Microsoft's approach to AI is very similar to King's. Kate Rayner, technical director of The Coalition, the "Gears of War" series development studio, said: "For decades, our QA team has been using scripted robots for testing, while actively exploring how to use AI to improve work efficiency." Describing AI as a "powerful tool for artists," it was also mentioned that AI can be used to combat cheating players in online games. For example, if a player drops out of a multiplayer match, AI can be used to dynamically adjust the skill level of non-human opponents. AI can also assist testers in finding bugs before the game is officially released.

Haiyan Zhang, general manager of game AI at Microsoft, expressed similar optimism and believes that he and Rainer can work together in a complementary way. "I often visit studios to ask what types of custom AI models and algorithms they are working on, because we believe game studios are best at driving innovation in game AI."

A proof of concept (Proof of Concept) prototype developed by Unity Japan branch engineer Keijiro Takahashi is an example. He integrated ChatGPT into the Unity engine, and users can quickly create objects or light sources as long as they enter simple text in the editor. .

However, Takahashi Keijiro also explained the usability of this AI plug-in. "It's not really useful at the moment, sometimes it works well, but in some cases it works really badly. I get a lot of inspiration from these successes and failures, which is the main purpose of this project."

Rainer also believes that AI has raised the standards of the entire industry, while Zhang Haiyan has repeatedly emphasized that AI brings great opportunities to improve the ease of use and inclusiveness of games. “How can we allow players from different cultures to communicate seamlessly, and how can we ensure that players with different abilities can play the game on a fair environment? Over time, developers will create higher quality games through AI tools. The game will bring players an unprecedented experience."

Prospects are good, but not all of them work right now

Suspect

Compared with the speakers at the GDC venue, developers have more complex views on AI. Some are quite curious about AI, while others are cautiously optimistic and even disgusted. Jeff Gardner, former project director of the "Fallout" and "Elder Scrolls" series and founder of the independent studio Something Wicked, said that AI is likely to become a very useful tool, especially in search, research or problem solving. It will be an incredible helper.

But Gardner has concerns of his own. “Fundamentally, I do think that AI has the potential to destroy creativity. It disgusts me that AI is stealing other people’s art from the internet, which is why I stopped using AI tools, I don’t approve of that. "

Pavel Sasko, the task director of "Cyberpunk 2077" and the main designer of "The Witcher 3", is not too worried about the risks brought by AI. Part of the reason is that he feels that AI at this stage is not good enough to do the work of artists, let alone replace them. Of course, AI can already do some seemingly beneficial work.

“Like a lot of R&D studios, we do a lot of research, and sometimes partner with other companies, to see how we can use AI in our work to speed things up,” Sasko said. He revealed that CDPR found that in all links related to images, AI can provide a lot of potential help. For example, AI technology can come in handy when the development team is creating early concept designs, or conducting preliminary checks on the work.

"AI is a tool that artists can try to use to research possible directions and try to create different content. As artists, each of us will be influenced by our own experience, experience, knowledge and ideas when we create. From this perspective In general, AI can produce more content. In the ideation stage, AI can help us come up with more diverse ideas and take us to places we have never been before, so I think it is very useful.”

Rainer, Zhang Haiyan and directors of related AI departments of Microsoft shared their views on GDC

Sasko talked about a second potential use of AI — ChatGPT, and everything to do with text generation. But he believes that in this regard, AI technology is not mature enough. “Many big companies are researching how to allow screenwriting teams to use AI tools.” For example, AI modules for “Horse Riding and Blade 2” have appeared on the market, allowing players to talk to NPC characters. "But you will also find that the dialogue output by ChatGPT is very bad, and the quality is not good at all." Sasko believes that if ChatGPT is used to generate short responses from NPCs to player actions, the effect may be better.

In addition to the above two uses, he also believes that AI can be used to voice characters, but this practice is bound to cause controversy. The game industry started using speech generation tools about 10 years ago, but only robotic voices could be produced, which was sufficient until human actors dubbed the characters. But today, AI voices that mimic the voices of celebrities or voice actors have emerged.

"It needs regulation, right?" Sasko said. "It's almost like stealing someone else's intellectual property ... I think proper regulation is necessary, and game companies have to license the sound and make sure it's done in a proper way." way to use."

Still, AI dubbing can bring some clear benefits to CDPR. Sasko pointed out that character dubbing is one of the most expensive places in game development. The company needs to invite actors from all over the world to participate in the recording. The whole process will cost a lot of budget, especially with Keanu Reeves, Idry When stars like Elba and Sasha Grey worked together. "In this case, the cost of dubbing was a huge part of the project budget. It would be great if the AI could provide support, provide an advance version, fix some wrong lines, or use it when you have to change lines at the last minute .”

“I want to emphasize that while AI can play a role in every aspect of game development, I don’t think it can replace art, screenwriting or voice actors in any way, at least not at this stage. In ten years, the situation may be different. Changes, because the development speed of AI is too fast. But at the same time of rapid development, we have also seen some of its shortcomings. For example, Midjourney cannot generate many pictures of different styles, and the style of painting is too monotonous, which can be seen at a glance .The same goes for AI voiceover and text generation, they are just tools.”

Another application scenario of ChatGPT - NPC and players talking about mountains

Controversy

At this year's GDC Animation Summit, Ryan Daffin, animation director of Microsoft's first-party studio and Undead Labs, the developer of "Rotten State", also gave a speech on AI. He also prepared a song for the live audience to play at the end of the speech. At the beginning of the song, the chorus line goes something like this: "I'm not a machine, with an art degree, but now some damn website draws better pictures than me..."

Originally, Duffin's talk was titled Exploring the Intersection of AI and Feedback Cultures in Game Development: Lessons Learned and Future Opportunities. But that was a stunt, Duffin admitted, and the real title of the talk should be "No Big Deal: Negation, Criticism, and the Machine That Will Destroy Us All."

"When I started thinking about the zeitgeist of 2023, artificial intelligence and feedback culture immediately came to mind," Duffin said. people."

“In theory, it seems like AI will eliminate the need for human expertise, which fits with many people’s visions of AI’s future trajectory. In discussions around AI, professionals and creators are either outraged or Casually accepting the reality that AI is just another tool in the process of human progress. AI is indeed a tool, but its advocates make no secret of their position and try to drive them away with nice words like 'democratization' Experts like us."

"The AI doesn't love you, it doesn't hate you, but you're made of atoms, and that can be used for a lot of things."

In his 15-minute talk, Duffin laid out the various limitations of AI. "6 months ago, some of Midjourney's cue words involved the work of paid artists. Its advocates openly acknowledged that although AI has great potential, it also poses threats. As game developers, we also need to consider testing it. Make sure the game is not filled with vulgar content. In addition, there are still problems with the legality of training models, we cannot release things that cannot be verified, and the material of AI works is often difficult to trace.”

"I don't want to be an 'awakened' cop, but as you can see, every character that Midjourney draws is beautiful, and no one is plain or ugly... In the AI's understanding, 'not attractive' seems to be equivalent to 'Not a model', even a stockbroker is a bodybuilder."

Duffin played a set of slides showing the results of Midjourney using "a very successful but not very attractive Wall Street stockbroker" as a cue: 4 ridiculously muscular in skin-tight suits white man. Next to the stockbroker, Duffin also generated 4 other pictures with the prompt word "a friendly but not very attractive doctor sitting in the office". Judging from the results, these doctors are all with mustaches, Well-behaved white men in white coats, without exception.

Although AI does not have its own thoughts, the paintings make us feel an alternative irony

"I didn't specify 'white' or 'male' in the cue words, regardless of what people think about diversity, this is really a blind spot in the AI painting. We can't ignore this problem by saying that 'AI is just a tool' …We must remember that before any tool was created by humans in history, the ethics and consequences were fully considered,” Duffin said.

The next slide shows images of wheels, early cars, guns, and the internet. "Some tools change the course of history, while others destroy entire industries. I can't predict how AI will affect the development of human society. Time will give the answer."

Duffin wrote in the lyrics: "It can steal the artist's face, it can imitate the actor's voice. It will write a book as an author, leaving us all with no choice. Some people say it can achieve democratization, but Already making money laundering with it; tech niggas rejoicing while we're starving..." Duffin argues that artists have had to join forces to push "tools that we have that computers don't."

"As the homogeneity of AAA games becomes more and more serious, how many interactive entertainment products can really challenge the player's feelings or emotions even if the AI has some fancy auto-completion function? Games can be beautiful, fresh, It is original, but many products are not like this. A large number of knock-offs and copycat games have made players feel tired...Under this trend, we do have the risk of being replaced, because our products are like fast food, too routine.”

“The easiest thing for an AI to mass-produce is junk food. AI may be better at making cheeseburgers than we are, but we can cook other delicacies. Humans have the advantage over machines that they can imagine, criticize, and Consciously iterate on content. AI is productive, but it can neither judge nor feel. Great works of art can move us, but we can’t create great work if we can’t talk about them critically.”

Using Unreal Engine MetaHuman technology and AI algorithm, most of the shots can be generated and rendered for a MV with only text descriptions

future

King CTO Steve Collins emphasized that while King aims to transform into an "AI-first" company, it will still employ a large number of testers and will not rely entirely on AI tools. Talking about the impact of AI on game developers, Collins said: "I have two feelings. First, I have been very excited about the development of AI in the past few years; second, I think we should try to understand how to use AI to make full use of it. its advantages."

"A lot of people are familiar with the classic analogy: When photography first came along, people thought painters were going to lose their jobs, right? But that obviously didn't happen. In fact, photography also gave birth to a whole new type of artist, the Photographers. People are always initially afraid of the unknown, which is normal. But as AI further stimulates human creativity, artists will be more proactive in integrating it into the content creation pipeline.”

"Midjourney is a good example. The new version can generate professional photography-level pictures, but artists still need to think about how to use this technology to select the most suitable results from different pictures according to the established direction. This is also design, but it is A whole new form of design."

If AI technology is widely used in testing, will QA personnel lose their jobs? When asked this question, The Coalition technical director Rainer said: "No, AI will only do those relatively monotonous and complex tasks."

Considering that the use of AI may involve various ethical issues, game companies should focus on self-regulation. Daniel Cruz, director of Microsoft's Office of Responsible AI (Office of Responsible AI), pointed out that he feels that developers should look at AI development with a growth mindset. "As a tool, AI's role is to enhance and assist, not replace." At the same time, three guests from Microsoft repeatedly emphasized in the panel discussion that it is very important to hire diverse employees in order to avoid AI from being involved in potential racial bias or other more controversial ethical topics.

But the problem with self-regulation is that no individual, institution or rule can stop a company from stopping self-regulation. Microsoft, for example, disbanded its entire AI ethics and society team in early March. A few days later, Bloomberg broke the news that Google also laid off some employees of its AI ethics team, and also issued a "red warning", requiring them to speed up research and development, and by abandoning some routine security checks, to recapture what was taken away by Microsoft. territory.

The same is true of Microsoft. According to a meeting audio obtained by the media, John Montgomery, Microsoft's corporate vice president of AI, said at the meeting: "Satya Nadella and Kevin Scott (Microsoft CEO and CTO) have imposed on us. There is great pressure to get the latest OpenAI model and its follow-up products into the hands of customers as soon as possible."

Use AI technology to let players participate in skin creation

It is worth mentioning that when game developers talked about the potential impact of AI on employment at the GDC conference, the global technology media "Rest of World" stated in an article that AI has caused widespread anxiety in the Chinese game art circle. Artists have reportedly been laid off as game companies turn to AI. An anonymous artist revealed that out of fear of unemployment, she and many colleagues would stay up late and work overtime almost every day. "I wish I could kill these AI programs... The team becomes more efficient, but everyone is more tired."

Meanwhile, on social media, many Chinese players have launched a wave of boycotts against AI-generated "digital corpses."

Although these early warning signs have appeared in the game industry, most developers in the GDC venue are not worried about being robbed of their jobs by AI. As Pavel Sasko said: "AI will never be able to become a genius writer, because writing is not just code words... All AI is based on some kind of language model, and the language model can only predict the next word - behind There's no intention. The AI isn't going to do any deeper thinking, express deep meaning or story, at least not yet."

Interestingly, according to Daffin, the fake title of his GDC speech was written by ChatGPT. "For those of you who like to bombard big conferences with sensational titles for your presentations, AI is awesome!

This article is compiled from:

Original title: "The games industry's response to AI? Reverence and rage"

Original Author: Chris Tapsell