AI is being implemented by most AAA studios at this point and Epic Games are certainly one of the most prominent names when it comes to the industry’s adoption of the new technology. And in a recent interview with GamesRadar+, the senior external development manager of the company, Stephanie Arnette has revealed how Epic Games is looking at different forms of automated tools (read AI) in order to increase efficiency.
“Epic has been exploring different AI tooling that we can use to help support our games,” Arnette continued, “I know everyone’s biggest fear is, ‘Oh my god, AI is going to take all our jobs.’ That’s not our goal. The goal is to make us more efficient.”
She also said that the application of AI in the different realms of art are being explored currently at Epic Games as well, although she didn’t provide any explanation as to what exactly their methods are for implementing AI for art assets in videogames.
“There really is no opening for a partner to try to put their AI info or tooling into ours, because it’s such a massive, massive company, so it would always be from our direction outward, and not the other way around.”
While the statements definitely sound reassuring, it’s still a bit hard to get around the fact that lots of companies, including Epic Games, have undergone massive layoffs in the recent past while there’s a surge in AI in the industry. It’s certainly a possibility that both are connected somehow, while also acknowledging that companies have all the incentive to use AI cause it allows them to produce the same amount of output while cutting down on development costs by replacing employees. As huge megacorporations have put profit-over-people multiple times, the usage of AI in the industry remains a concerning issue, at least for now.
Meanwhile, the entire videogame industry is being hit with layoffs, which in some cases, are happening multiple times in a company and the recent 1000 job cuts in Epic Games are also parts of these extremely sad and unfortunate turn of events.
