Phil Spencer, Xbox chief, on AI: ‘I’m protective of the creative process’
Artificial Intelligence is very much on the news agenda right now. The unstoppable rise of ChatGPT and the seemingly imminent prospect of generalised AI able to re-create broad human thinking processes has seen concerns raised by everyone from major business CEOs to Geoffrey Hinton, one of the godfathers of AI research. AI has been an element of video game design and production for at least two decades, but now with AI art programs and the rise of procedurally generated game dialogue, there are growing questions over how AI is going to effect not just the content of games, but the teams that make them.
Talking at the Xbox games showcase in Los Angeles recently, Xbox chief Phil Spencer played down concerns that AI could be used to streamline the game production process and therefore lead to smaller teams.
“Actually, that isn’t an area we’re thinking about a ton with AI,” he said. “One of the areas where AI is probably front and centre for us is policy and enforcement. In terms of the safety of our networks and just the amount of traffic that happens on Xbox Live, it’s almost incomprehensible for a human who’s trying to monitor that – so applying technology that can ensure that the right conversations are happening with the right people, that’s an area where the intersection between Microsoft’s AI capability and what gaming is doing is important.”
The use of AI and machine-learning in community moderation is growing.
Last year Ubisoft and Riot launched a research project to tackle toxicity and abuse in online game communities, using AI as an important component, and an array of data solutions companies are offering AI moderation packages. Meanwhile, however, we’re also starting to see more concepts such as Ubisoft’s Ghostwriter, which generates repetitive dialogue, or “barks” for NPCs, and Blizzard’s Diffusion tool, apparently trained on the company’s own Warcraft artwork to produce concept sketches for future titles. With the costs of making games escalating every year and the general refusal of gamers to spend more than £60 on a new title, something surely has to give?
“I’ll say as a head of Xbox, I’m very protective of the creative process,” said Spencer. “A year or maybe 18 months ago, every question I got was, when am I building the NFT game? And, I’m like, games aren’t built to showcase technology. Technology helps showcase the creativity in a game. AI’s been in video games for decades and I like to make tools available to our creators so they can make the best games, and that’s where I start.”
As for the growing interest in using ChatGPT-like models to create NPC dialogue, Spencer was similarly circumspect. “I don’t think we’ve found the intersection of large language model AI and more fun in a video game. I’m not saying we won’t, but I like to enable our teams to think about that as an expanded part of their canvas and where they can find more fun before it would get to any kind of efficiency thing.
“Efficiency only matters if you found success with the thing that you’re trying to grow and build.”
• Keith Stuart attended a press trip to the Xbox Showcase in Los Angeles with other journalists. Travel and accommodation expenses were met by Microsoft.