Nvidia AI a threat to every job in game development?
In a recent keynote presentation, computer hardware manufacturer Nvidea showed its new “Omniverse Avatar Cloud Engine”, an “AI” model that can generate interactive NPCs (Non Player Characters) in real time. Time for junior writers, 3D modelers and animators to look for a new job?
AI replaces an entire team
Imagine: you walk up to a random NPC in a game, you exchange some words and learn something about the world you are in. Then you continue. An interaction of often no more than a few minutes. Still, a lot of work goes into that short interaction.
The 3D model of the NPC must be made, provided with textures and a skeleton that can be animated. This work makes extensive use of ready-made building blocks, so to speak. But still much of the fine work remains handicraft. Then the NPC has to be animated and told where in the game world to walk and where not to, what to do and of course what to say. Writing texts for NPCs is a profession in the game world.
In the video below (from about 26:00), all this is not done by a team of people, but by an “AI” that immediately responds to what the player says. The interaction is very flat and won’t pull anyone into a deeper story like a good human writer can. But it’s only the first version of the software, and the bigwigs of the gaming world don’t give a damn about artful integrity and depth, only about sales.
They took our jobs!?
It’s not for nothing that creatives worry. The TV and film world is currently being held hostage by a major writers’ guild strike. Explicit commitment is a guarantee that they will not be replaced by “AI”. The video above will raise similar fears for game industry creatives.
Yes, the end result is better when you have a team of people build a scene from scratch. But that costs money. And why would you pay an animator when an “AI” can just (or just not) imitate the work convincingly enough? CEOs have long complained that making games is getting more and more expensive. The result is that the price has to go up (which they have already done with the introduction of day one DLC). It is therefore far from inconceivable that technology such as this will put many people, who already work on a project basis, on the street in the near future.
Human Creativity > AI
Still, the question is whether “AI” will ever become more than a tool. Yes, developments are going fast and yes, what is currently possible with the help of so-called AI models is very impressive. But an “AI” works fundamentally differently from a human brain. Sometimes it seems as if computer systems behave like people, but they often miss the point just a little bit.
We have had a name for this phenomenon for years, the uncanny valley effect. A cartoon animal like Mickey Mouse resembles a human enough to empathize with his adventures. When Mickey does something that no human could ever do, you take it for granted, it’s a cartoon after all. But when something comes very close to reality, we become more critical. A realistically modeled and animated human immediately rings the alarm bells when it does not conform to expectations. Previously, this mainly concerned facial expressions.
With “AI” threatening to take over many more roles in the games industry, I fear we will see the signs everywhere. Yes, it can save a lot of work when a random background character doesn’t have to be made and speeched by a flesh and blood human being. But when this NPC suddenly starts making racy comments or becomes intensely racist, the role of “AI” will be clear. At least, I hope so anyway. So for once I agree with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman: “AI” will change jobs, but not replace entire jobs.
