Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick said artificial intelligence will have a “limited” impact on game development because AI models lack “creativity.” The executive said artificial intelligence cannot create games like “Grand Theft Auto,” the popular open-world crime series from Take-Two subsidiary Rockstar Games. Even if it could, it wouldn’t be a “very good thing.”
Zelnick made the comments during an interview with CNBC this week, in which the Take-Two boss downplayed the value of artificial intelligence in game development. He said he was not an “opponent” of the potential applications of artificial intelligence, but that its use in creative media such as games “remains limited.”
Take-Two CEO points to limitations related to intellectual property in creative media.
“We have to protect our intellectual property, but more importantly, we have to care about others,” Strauss told CNBC. “If you create intellectual property with artificial intelligence, it’s not protected.”
Take-Two CEO says artificial intelligence lacks creativity
But more importantly, Zelnick said AI is “backward” and therefore unable to creatively succeed in making a game as good as Grand Theft Auto.
“Assume there are no restrictions [on AI]. Can we push a button tomorrow and create a marketing plan similar to Grand Theft Auto? “Zelnick said. “The answer is no. A, you can’t do this yet, and B, I don’t think you’ll get any good results in the end. You end up with something quite derivative. “
The executive said that AI models are adapted to datasets of old information, and while this approach can be helpful in other areas, it makes it difficult to create complex and immersive video game worlds.
“Anything that involves retrospective data, computing and LL.M., AI is a great fit, and that applies to a lot of what we do at Take-Two,” he said. “Anything that has nothing to do with that is going to be very, very bad.”
Zelnick went on to say that “by definition,” creativity cannot exist in any AI model.
The Take-Two boss’s comments come as several companies in the games industry have begun rolling out artificial intelligence in video game production to cut costs. According to a recent report from Business Insider (paywall), leadership at Electronic Arts, which recently released Battlefield 6, has asked its 15,000 employees across its various teams to use artificial intelligence on “almost everything.”
Last week, EA also announced a partnership with Stability AI to develop artificial intelligence models, tools and workflows to help creatives and artists.