Elon Musk said his artificial intelligence startup xAI will build an artificial intelligence (AI) gaming studio. The world’s richest man took to X (formerly Twitter) in a cryptic post highlighting his dissatisfaction with the large number of game studios being owned by large corporations. This isn’t the first time Musk has posted about gaming. He recently live streamed himself playing Diablo 4 and expressed his admiration for video games. X’s executive chairman and chief technology officer (CTO) emphasized in the post that the AI game studio will be affiliated with xAI.
Elon Musk hints at starting AI gaming studio
The billionaire entrepreneur made the comments in response to a post from software engineer Billy Markus, the co-creator of the Dogecoin cryptocurrency. In the post, Marcus criticized the gaming industry for being “captured by ideology” and said gamers have always resisted “stupid” manipulation by developers and gaming journalists.
Marcus also stressed that most of the games he’s enjoyed over the past decade have come from independent developers and studios. Responding to the post, Musk emphasized that “too many game studios belong to large companies,” adding that xAI will soon launch an artificial intelligence game studio to “make games great again.”
The capabilities of artificial intelligence in gaming have attracted the interest of many companies in the industry. For example, Google DeepMind launched Genie, an artificial intelligence model that uses predictive analytics to create endless 2D platform video games. DeepMind also introduced the Scalable Instruction Multiworld Agent (SIMA), an artificial intelligence system that can interact with various game environments and perform different tasks in 3D video games.
Musk’s comments about game studios being owned by large corporations come days after reports surfaced that Sony was planning to acquire Kadokawa, the Japanese technology company that owns Elden Ring developer FromSoftware. Last year, Microsoft also completed its acquisition of Activision Blizzard, the publisher of games such as “Call of Duty,” “World of Warcraft” and “Diablo.”
Musk’s mention of xAI also highlights recent reports that suggest the billionaire has big ambitions for his artificial intelligence company and wants to expand its scope to generate more revenue. The company reportedly plans to launch a standalone AI application similar to ChatGPT as soon as next month.