The debates around artificial intelligence and its integration into the various arts and professions are raging. Indeed, the performance and rapid progress of tools such as Chat GPT raises questions about the importance of their role in the tasks that are reserved for us today. Recently honored at the BAFTAs for the work of his career, Shuhei Yoshida, founding pillar of PlayStation, granted a interview at the Guardian in which he shares his thoughts on AI and game development.
A changing landscape
Since 1993, Yoshida has had the opportunity to work on a significant number of projects including many Game Of The Year winners. PlayStation is often associated with its AAA exclusives, which are often very impressive graphically. However, if the technical level of games has progressed over the past ten years, so has the cost of their production: that of God of War: Ragnarok peaks at 200 million dollars against “only” 44 for God of War 3 released in 2010.
Thus, despite the ethical questions posed by the use of artificial intelligence, it appears to be a means of reducing costs for Yoshida, who confides that he has witnessed a development feat thanks to an AI.
I was reviewing 15 pitches as part of a competition for indie artists in Japan, and one of them featured amazingly beautiful graphics, made by a small team of students (..) They said that they had used Midjourney, the AI art generator, to create the graphics. The fact that a small number of young people can create an incredibly beautiful game is a real achievement.
To developers’ concerns about the rise of AI, Yoshida responds that with proper use, it will change the nature of development, probably to the point of eliminating the need for developers to learn to code. However, creativity takes precedence over everything else and the best achievements will always come from people. For Yoshida, the video game industry remains governed by talent, in particular thanks to its ability to integrate technological advances without impacting the fun that characterizes it.
