Dan Houser and Absurd Ventures are also using artificial intelligence, but he believes it is not nearly as useful as some companies would like us to think.
Houser, the co-founder of Rockstar Games and the founder of Absurd Ventures, has parted ways with many of his industry colleagues by acknowledging that although he and his team are working with artificial intelligence, it is still not as useful as some companies claim. Appearing on Channel 4’s Sunday Brunch to promote his new book, A Better Paradise, Houser said that the games industry could either move in a genuinely interesting direction or become far too focused on making money. He also briefly mentioned his company’s next game.
“With any commercial art form, there’s always the danger that companies will get distracted by money. With all these technology companies, people are getting rich and powerful on a scale that almost no one has ever seen before. They’re arguably the richest and most powerful people who have ever lived, influencing the world in ways that few others can. And all of these companies start out the same way: ‘We’re here to make things better. We’re here to help people. We’re here to fix the world.’ Then they hit this kind of Faustian moment where they decide, ‘We’re also going to get extremely rich and powerful,’ and things get corrupted.
In the story, there are lots of AI characters. We are dabbling in the use of AI. The truth is, it’s not as useful as some companies would have you believe. It will not solve all the problems. There are many areas where we need technology, and AI is great at some tasks but cannot do others yet. AI companies claim their technology can solve every problem, but it really cannot yet. As far as I understand, AI is a sort of umbrella term for all future computing, but it cannot do very much yet. However, if we invest in it, it might be able to do so in the future. Many of those processes are already being done by computers. Some of it is just to sell AI stock or convince everyone that it’s transformative. Other things it does are amazing,” Houser said.
Absurd is currently working on bold new visions that span a wide range of new IP universes across multiple media, including live-action and gaming projects. The latter will still need a few more years of development.
Source: Gamesindustry, Eurogamer
