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Strauss Zelnick, the CEO of GTA 6 publisher Take-Two, has responded to comments made by Elon Musk about how the profundity of generative AI will change game development. In short, he disagrees and takes a shot at the Tesla CEO.
Back in January, Musk agreed with a Twitter user that, "There’s definitely a non-zero chance we get 'generate your own GTA 6 in a few minutes' before GTA 6." Tim Sweeney, the CEO of Epic Games, then chimed in: "We have text-to-image and text-to-video, so text-to-GTA is the next logical step in generative AI."
Musk concurred. "You won’t even have to ask. AI will figure what video game you’d like best," he said on Twitter. Fast forward to an on-stage conversation with Zelnick at the Semafor World Economy Conference on April 16, and he responds by stating that if this technology were going to replace anyone's job, it'd be Musk's.
"[Musk] has unlimited financial resources, and he has unlimited human resources, and he has - apparently - an unlimited number of ideas," Zelnick says, his full comments viewable in the above video from 32:14. "He also knows his way around AI. He also works 20 hours a day. If AI were to take anyone's job, wouldn't it take his job?"
If this tech can subsume labour so easily, Zelnick muses, then why isn't it freeing up people who're working long hours? "Like the richest guy on Earth, wouldn't that be job number one for AI to take? Why is he so busy?" Zelnick adds. "And by the way, why am I working harder than ever despite the fact that I’ve totally accepted AI into every part of my life?"
The simple answer here is that AI can help create useful tools in certain instances, but it isn't actually revolutionizing anything. It's certainly not replacing or even streamlining the intense amount of work needed to put together a game like Grand Theft Auto 6.
Zelnick and the host then joke about whether Musk is even real, an internal discussion I have every time I see him in headlines. "Maybe Elon Musk is indeed a simulation, it’s possible," they ponder. "I mean in fairness, if you were gonna choose a person who were a simulation, he would be my number one choice."
