43-year CRPG veteran behind Fallout and Wasteland "worried about job loss" from AI, which seems justified now that his parent company Microsoft laid off 9,000 in exchange for more slop

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Brian Fargo is still deciding how he feels about generative AI

Fallout overseer
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Microsoft has clearly expressed its passion for generative AI tech in recent weeks – its most grand gesture was sweeping about 9,000 workers away with layoffs – so it's natural that studio heads under its purview are wondering what their futures hold, as is the case with inXile Entertainment founder and CRPG legend Brian Fargo.

Fallout and Wasteland producer Fargo tells video game YouTuber MrMattyPlays in a recent interview that, when it comes to AI, he's "very keen" to determine "what are the ethical uses of it? I am worried about job loss, but we'll put that aside."

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Though Fargo says that he's "actually used AI to save a job," too.

"We had a person who's been with the organization a long time, and they're not as," he snaps his fingers quickly, "as they used to be, but they have a lot of experience."

"I'm like, 'Hey, could we do something that helps organize this person better so that it isn't, like, put them out to pasture? And so it keeps them on track and organized better in a way that they used to be able to do on their own?' Hey, I think that's a great use of AI."

Still, Fargo isn't convinced that AI could ever be anything more than a tool "for mundane tasks that nobody wants to do, so human creativity can soar."

"For inspiration," he says, "I see stuff" in museums or by human artists, "I don't use [AI]. In fact, we pay extra to our outside contractors, because we have outside artwork done, like, 'You can't use AI. You're not stealing anybody's work.' And they go, 'If it [could] be AI, it would be cheaper.' We don't care."

Microsoft, EA, and other publishers should give up on artificial intelligence: We peaked 21 years ago, when Resident Evil 4 devs were thrilled AI enemies could think "like a smart person" by using "weapons, of course."

Ashley Bardhan
Ashley Bardhan
Senior Writer

Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.

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