The Rise Of AI And Its Implications For Gaming

Currently valued at $87 billion, the AI intelligence market is set to grow to a staggering $1.59 trillion by 2030. But it’s not the figures, nor the many sci-fi movies decrying the horrors of machining technology, that got the public concerned. The recent proliferation of OpenAI’s ChatGPT has set off the alarm, in a dynamic way.  

The technology immediately changed the content writing industry as well as education, being used by students to create essays for assignments in seconds, and raising many questions in relation to ethics, technology, productivity, creativity, and the value of time.  

While AI is a cause of concern for many industries, gaming has been incorporating it for quite a while now, in terms of procedural generation and non-playable characters (NPCs). It is not quite the evil that it’s being made out to be, and it’s time to pause and really consider what the implications are, without buying into all the hysteria.  

AI - Time To Think Deeply 

While there is a strong contention that AI will take all the jobs (it already has, to a large degree, if you take into account the tech layoffs at roughly the same time as increased AI integration), this is limited thinking in the broader sense.  

It’s like saying that we should never have invented computers and the internet because of the millions of jobs it rendered redundant. The redundancy might appear problematic in the short term, but is extremely beneficial for society as a whole over a long time horizon. Technological progress always increases the overall GDP of a country in the long term, being the main driver of economic growth.  

Of course, AI comes with consequences and a host of direct and indirect effects. It could easily result in wealth centralization. It could be used to assist in fraud, to forge letters and emails, and to complete tasks that you are being paid to do by an employer. And it inevitably will be, in the same way that computers are used to assist in fraud and for multiple other nefarious purposes.  

It might incentivize laziness as it encourages people not to think, but to have an answer generated for them. This is what I believe to be the most pressing concern, as somebody who likes to write down my thinking process to see whether it makes sense or not.  

But ultimately, the effects of AI depend on how it is used and deployed. AI can have a large number of positive implications for the gaming industry, despite the fear of change and the capacity for initial disruption. 

Game Developers Will Love AI

A survey of the software development industry will show that an enormous amount of hours are lost in technical debt. This means that you have to hire a developer to fix the errors made by the previous developer. Developers spend 42% of their time fixing bugs and 80% of IT budgets go towards bug fixes. 

And developers generally hate to fix other people’s sloppy code, preferring to create correct code in the first place. So you have to pay an unhappy developer (or intern, if you can find one) to try to make decent code out of poor code. 

AI is perfectly suited to this role, being able to quickly identify poor code and propose a solution. When you change a piece of code, it can have a series of consequences to other parts of the code that rely on it. AI can simultaneously update numerous functions to find the optimal solution. Or it can find numerous solutions and present these options to a developer to select the best one. 

Ultimately, you will still need a developer (or an AI software specialist). But all of the annoying, redundant tasks will be automated. It will save money for business owners and create a new industry (AI specialization) for developers. Developers are always upskilling anyway, learning new languages and techniques, which is an attitude all successful programmers will adopt to remain competitive.

The Laborious Nature Of Game Making

Few people truly appreciate the laborious nature of creating games. Vast landscapes such as Skyrim or Red Dead Redemption don’t create themselves, and neither do the mini-narratives, music, stories, items, or characters. There is a significant amount of research involved at quite a large cost. AI will dramatically reduce time to production as well as costs. 

AI has been involved in games for quite a while, mainly in the form of NPCs. This makes the game far more enjoyable. Procedural generation is used in games like Minecraft to automatically create new landscapes as the player moves forward. Otherwise, the game development process would take too long. 

The biggest advantage of AI is in terms of its self-learning. Over time, it can study and understand player tendencies, and adopt responses and tactics depending on what a player has done. This is as close to real life as it gets, where people take in the input of others and respond accordingly, not based on pre-coded patterns but on what is actually happening. 

AI will also be extensively used in Web3 games development, which is set to feature immersive technology such as VR. 

The metaverse will transform education, where students can meet Greek gods, political figures, and fairytale creatures. MMXXII from the Alter Ego group, meanwhile, is looking to establish global education for free, with a metaverse that focuses on cultural preservation. Such initiatives are important given the disparities in education, particularly in regions such as South Africa. 

AI For No-Code Development

In a commercial sense, we are already seeing AI take over in the form of no-code development. No-Code AI platforms are expected to grow at a CAGR of 28.1% from the years 2022 to 2032. These no-code AI platforms enable non-AI experts to create impressive websites and applications without having any knowledge. 

According to Gartner, 80% of technology products and services will be built by non-technical teams by 2024. Microsoft, meanwhile, estimates that we are already in a predominantly no-code environment, with 90% of apps developed from 2020 - 2025 likely to be created through these platforms. This is partly attributed to the fact that software and IT can no longer be consigned to a single department.  

No-code development guarantees (more or less) scalability, price, and maintainability, right from the outset. It streamlines a lot of roles that were extremely costly and time-consuming, particularly for project managers and business owners involved in software development or eCommerce sales. And it does the same for the gaming industry. 

AI - Wonderful For The Gaming Industry

The gaming industry often adopts new technological innovations before they are seen in other industries. AI has already been used in gaming, particularly for procedural generation and NPCs. With the rise of Web3 gaming with metaverses and distributed ledgers, players have come to expect an extremely high level of detail, spontaneity, speed, and graphics that only AI can provide. 

Of course, many questions remain unanswered. Elon Musk and a number of other high-level scientists and engineers have signed an open letter to slow down the rate of AI adoption, because it is being pushed forward at a rate faster than society can adapt. This is a perfectly reasonable position. 

We will all benefit from AI, as long as it is organically integrated into wide-scale society and is not monopolized by a few small actors. I have a different opinion from others because I believe that AI will actually be a great equalizer, instead of a divider. 

AI will help make the gaming industry thrive, and it’s particularly exciting when you think about how it will be used in tandem with immersive technology and VR integration.