The Last of Us game director and co-creator Bruce Straley has doubled down hard on his original generative AI stance, pointing out that the tech's ethical questions extend far and wide. Needless to say, he'll be avoiding the tech for as long as he can while making his next game: the delightfully named Coven of the Chicken Foot.
While speaking about the recent drama surrounding Larian's use of AI in Divinity's early development during a chat with Kinda Funny Games, Straley evokes "that Jurassic Park thing." You know the one. As the saying goes, your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn't stop to think if they should.
"We don't need AI," the game developer continues. "I really do think it's the demise of the human species. Our brain - we need a frontal lobe. Hundreds of thousands of years of this, like, a supercomputer that's built [into our brains], and they're making football fields and draining water supplies to try to replicate something that a human can already do. It just doesn't make sense to me." As executives continue to focus on generative AI's convenience and arguably improving quality, it's refreshing to hear a developer bring attention back to why the tech is harmful in the first place.
Straley is also right to point out that the process of making a game, or any piece of art, informs the finished piece. "Seeing people get challenged and overcome those challenges, that's to me what it is to be on a team and be in a community as we get to be inspired by each other," he adds. "AI doesn't inspire me. I don't want to watch a movie that I know somebody's prompted. How do they actually communicate what their fantasies are, what their childhood trauma is, their art? I don't think prompting AI gets to the heart of what the human experience is."
Over on social media, Straley does acknowledge that "this is all bigger than me" and generative AI is probably "not going away" thanks to a lack of regulation and billions of dollars in investments. "But I've chosen my path. I don't use gen AI or any LLMs in my work. There may be a point in time that I can't say that anymore, but for today, that's my choice." In regard to his new studio, Wildflower Entertainment, Straley doesn't enforce a company-wide mandate, but he's "99.9% sure no one is using it on the team."
Former The Last of Us director is happy to be making his own weird game and "not something that you need to do a remaster of in the next 4 years because the tech has already outgrown it"
