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For better or worse, AI is now fully entrenched in game development – theoretically as a tool to aid in development, though there's a fair bit of controversy within studios about how helpful the technology actually is. Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick is willing to acknowledge that even if it could create whole games on its own, they probably wouldn't be very good. Heck, it probably couldn't even come up with a decent GTA 6 marketing plan.
"Let's say there were no constraints [on AI]," Zelnick tells CNBC. "Could we push a button tomorrow and create an equivalent to the 'Grand Theft Auto' marketing plan? The answer is no. A, you can’t do that yet, and B, I am of the view that you wouldn't end up with anything very good. You end up with something pretty derivative."
In Zelnick's view, AI tech is inherently limited, since it can only look at existing data and remix that information into slightly different forms. Its value in helping something like a video game publisher, then, can only go so far.
"Anything that involves backward-looking data compute, it’s really good for that and that applies to lots of things," Zelnick says. "What we do at Take-Two, anything that isn’t attached to that, it's going to be really, really bad at."
He's also quick to note that generative AI as most of us know it – that is, content generation pulling from existing work without any regard to copyright – presents some serious difficulties for game development. "We have to protect our intellectual property, but more than that, we have to be mindful of others," Zelnick says. "If you create intellectual property with AI, it’s not protectable."
While Zelnick created some controversy when he called AI "the future of technology" and predicted that it "will increase employment," he's broadly had a more nuanced view on the tech than most video game CEOs. He's previously said that AI users who think they "can push a button and say, 'Create the next GTA 6'" are completely wrong and has suggested that developers deserve to be paid "for their work if it's replicated by AI after."
