Make games great again! Musk’s AI, DEI, and gaming’s future

WEB DESK: Elon Musk revealed on X that he has plans to create his own video game studio that would make use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) during development, in a post published on Wednesday.

“Too many game studios that are owned by massive corporations. xAI is going to start an AI game studio to make games great again!” Musk wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter. The company that Musk mentions in his tweet is his own artificial intelligence company that he launched in March of 2023 and has since released various iterations of its conversational AI model Grok.

The announcement came in response to another X user who was ranting about the state of the video game industry. The user, named BillyM2k, expressed his discontent with the gaming industry, claiming that game developers and game journalists have become “ideologically captured.”

“Gamers have always rejected dumb manipulative bs, and can tell when someone is an outsider poser. Why lean into the bs?” he wrote, leading to Musk’s aforementioned response.

Musk has previously stated his admiration for video games, as well as his belief in AI improving the overall landscape of the industry. In October, he stated “I think if you apply AI to a video game, you could really make it just an incredible video game.

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‘IDEOLOGICALLY CAPTURED’

Musk has also previously stated his dislike for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) in video games.

“The problem with the DEI and the woke mind virus is that it kills the art. When you see something that’s forcibly imposed on a game, it kills the art. It kicks you out of the story because you fell you’re being lectured. Let me just enjoy my video games.”

Pushback against DEI is not something new in the industry. In 2014, a harassment campaign dubbed Gamergate was launched against women in the industry, including but not limited to Anita Sarkeesian, Zoe Quinn, and Brianna Wu. The movement sought to pushback against progressivism in video games, as certain groups believed and peddled the claim that journalists and game developers were forcing issues of gender equality and sexism into their games.

The harassment campaign, which claimed that the aforementioned issues of gender equality and sexism were being shoehorned into games, inadvertently proved the need for such discussion as the women targeted in the campaign received death and rape threats. Even now, the lack of inclusion for women and other underrepresented groups is well alive and well evident.

In December of 2023, Activision Blizzard paid $54 million to settle a discrimination lawsuit. The suit alleged that female employees of the company were subject to constant sexual harassment, along with being denied promotion opportunities, and were receiving less pay than their male counterparts. The company had already previously paid $35 million and $18 million to settle two seperate suits filed in 2021. The harassment stemmed from what has been described as a “frat boy” culture that was prevalent in the company.

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Musk’s comments regarding diversity in the industry is worrying considering the lasting hateful sentiment from alt-right aligned gamers, and clear signs that anti DEI talking points are back on the rise. Games such as the upcoming “Assassins Creed: Shadows” and the recently released “Dragon Age: The Veilguard” are some of the latest targets of such sentiment. The former in particular has been criticised for having a black man as one of the two protagonists in a game set in feudal Japan, despite the character being based on a real historic figure who some Japanese historians classify as Japan’s first foreign samurai.

THE FUTURE OF AI AND GAMES

While AI used during game development may alleviate some of the burden put on developers when higher ups inevitably set a release date that forces them to work overtime, it could end up taking away the jobs of many in the industry. Companies, such as Ubisoft, have already begin to use AI tools to write some non-player character (NPC) dialogue. While Ubisoft currently state that such tools do not replace writers, there is no guarantee that wont change when AI becomes more prominent in the industry.

AI is also being used to create 3D environments, with the mega popular game Roblox launching a tool that allows developers to create scenery or locations with text prompts. Tools like these can significantly cut down on development time, but that may result in dialogue that lacks emotion and environments that lack the level of detail possible with a human touch.

The future of the industry, which will heavily feature the use of AI regardless of Musk’s involvement, will largely depend on whether AI is used as a tool for developers, or if it will become their replacements.