Tim Schafer, founder of Double Fine Productions and the thinker behind games like Psychonauts, Brutal Legend, and Grim Fandango, spoke about AI during his talk. interview on Twitch streamers cresap Earlier this week.
Cresap asked Schaefer, “I’m curious as a writer, what do you think about AI and the gaming industry? Are you worried? Is that the tool you use yourself?” He replied that he was impressed with the technology, but that the results left much to be desired.
“I [honestly] I don’t understand how they do it, I had it explained, I know about machine learning, and [neural networks]”I still can’t believe they’re outputting sentences that look like human characters. So at that level, it’s really impressive.” , I have never read anything important or worthwhile, and again, very impressive, but also a complete “who cares?” ”
He remembers when he was in college. A friend was creating an algorithm that Mozart might have composed if he saw a certain sunset. “Wow, I thought this was a really great technical challenge. Sure sounds like music, does it sound like Mozart? But it’s not Mozart, so who cares?”
“For me, art is about making connections between people. [The artist] “You’re exposing yourself to a kind of intuitive representation that you as a viewer, a player, a listener receive,” Shaffer told Cresap. I didn’t know I could feel it. ”
“I just can’t imagine the value of doing that with computers. Are they taking other people’s jobs and connecting people? But I don’t know.”
He went on to talk about his experience encountering AI-generated content online. becoming more and more common. What I remembered when I saw the slow death by AI was gray goo, a nightmarish assumption created by an American engineer in the 80s that a swarm of nanobots eats anything that lives, and AI is offered as an alternative to Simlish, etc. has been incorporated. So much is happening so quickly that I can empathize with Mr. Schaefer’s mixed sense of surprise and fatigue at its prevalence.
Cressup then runs a fun little experiment and asks ChatGPT to design a Tim Schafer game. It’s a cute moment, with Schaefer seriously considering his own storytelling style Generative his remix.
Ultimately, though, Schaefer concludes that while the piece began with some promise, “there’s no meat in it, but no really unique choices or meats that really excite you.” And considering this guy has written and produced in the games industry for over 30 years, I’d like to believe he knows himself well. AI may already be forming part of the creative process, but it certainly won’t replace the human touch.
