One of Activision Blizzard’s patents strongly suggests that it would use artificial intelligence rather than human labor. We shouldn’t cut back on spending that much!

The patent can be found here, and the description says that the artwork would be created by artificial intelligence. Blizzard would customize the style for several IPs (Diablo, Overwatch, Warcraft, Starcraft…). It doesn’t automatically mean the publisher would go in that direction, but it’s entering divisive territory with this move. Not everyone is keen on the expansion of AI in this way. (It’s already risky when in the case of System Shock, it was advertised with an AI-generated image of Shodan.)

The trademark is a technical document; reading it is redundant because an AI system fed a particular art style and generated new images. It then starts to build a 3D model, i.e., it creates the skeleton, textures it, and adds details. It’s a bit tricky because, on paper, it’s useful, as it takes the burden off people’s shoulders in a certain aspect of game development, but they get fired.

We’ve seen positive ideas for using AI in games (we’ve written about how a modder in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim VR was able to embed ChatGPT into the game to initiate conversations with NPCs, although their voices could be improved; we’ve also written about ChatGPT implemented in a robot dog to help with data processing), but it is more of a grey area. Will Blizzard’s art team’s future goal be to make AI work? It sounds overly dystopian.

What is certain is that game publishers will stop waiting for licenses and start experimenting as soon as possible. The results of these tests could be made public quickly, and the only question will be who will take the risk of using AI and who will remain a coward?

Source: PCGamer