World historian PlayStationlast March Shuhei Yoshida he also received a BAFTA for his career – which saw him join Sony since 1993 and which also led to him becoming president of the company’s Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019.
Precisely on the occasion of his BAFTA, Yoshida was interviewed by The Guardian, with whom he also discussed the contribution that artificial intelligences (or AI, if you prefer) can give the world of video game development.
As we had a professional tell you directly, there are some AIs that are already being exploited within development environments, but in the future we could see these technologies making clear steps forward – to the point of rendering more efficient game development process, according to Yoshida.
“I was analyzing fifteen proposals for an indie game competition in Japan this morning,” said Yoshida, who today is in charge of finding new talent for the PlayStation world. “One of their games had wonderful graphics, made by a small team of students.”
“They told me to having used Midjourney, the image-generating artificial intelligence, to create the artistic sector. It’s a powerful thing, that a small number of young people can make a great looking game,” Yoshida reasoned. “In the future, AI could develop interesting animations, behaviors, it could even do debugging of the program”.
So will AI replace human developers?
There is always a bogeyman when it comes to the contribution that AI could make, and it is the possibility that replace human workers, automating processes that today require our ingenuity. According to Yoshida, however, it is not a risk we are really running.
In his words:
«[L’intelligenza artificiale] it is a tool. And it serves that there is someone to use that tool. AI can do some very weird things, as you’ve surely seen: you have to be able to use it well.
AI may change the nature of how game developers learn, but ultimately development would become more efficient, people could create of the most beautiful things. And maybe people won’t even need to learn to code anymore, if they learn to use these tools, in the future. Creativity is more important, directing, how you see what you want to accomplish».
What matters, for Yoshida, is to keep in mind that the video game industry must continue to focus its creative efforts on creating of experiences that are fun and memorable for the players.
“The video game industry will never stop being a fun place,” he told The Guardian. «The industry continues to grow and grow, I hope you can continue to support and chase creative ideas and people trying to make new things».
The reason is easy to say and, probably, is already a not indifferent bogeyman in itself:
«You would never want to see the top 10 of video games which is always the same every year. Or that the games all become live services.
That would be rather boring for me.’
Previously, you will recall that the openly declared use of Midjourney within High on Life had generated several debates, between those who underlined how AI has actually been giving developers a hand for some time and those who fear the reduction to a minimum of the contribution creative and human in everything that can be speeded up – but which for some would end up having “less soul”.
This is certainly a debate that will take more and more shape in the coming years: some publishers have said they are interested in using AI to write sidekick dialogues with NPCs, for example, even if for now the players continue to be lukewarm in front of what is openly done with artificial intelligence.
We’ll find out how Sony will move in the future, even considering the increasingly exorbitant cost of the AAA games on which it puts its signature.
In the meantime, if you want to learn more about artificial intelligence, we remind you that you can take a look at our sister site Tom’s Hardware.
