A hot potato: Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick has made a concerning announcement: the GTA maker is "actively embracing generative AI." But, obviously aware of any potential backlash from fans, he emphasized that generative AI has "zero part" in GTA 6.
Zelnick was responding to a question about Google's Project Genie AI tool. Announced last week, the experimental system transforms simple text instructions into short, explorable video environments – interactive worlds, essentially.
Google's announcement of Project Genie caused Take-Two's stock price to fall to an 11-month low, a reaction that Zelnick said left him "a little confused."
"The video game business, since its inception, was built on the back of machine learning and artificial intelligence," he explained. "We create our games in computers with technology and, ever since questions began about generative AI about months ago, I've been incredibly enthusiastic about what the future can bring."
Zelnick added that Take-Two is currently actively embracing generative AI with hundreds of pilots testing its implementation across the company, including within its studios.
The CEO then rolled out the line we hear so often from executives – that AI will reduce the time spent on mundane tasks to drive efficiencies and reduce costs. It seems Zelnick hasn't read the two recent reports showing the majority of companies are seeing no financial benefits from introducing AI systems.
"That said, do I think [AI] tools by themselves create great entertainment properties? No, there's no evidence that that's the case and it won't be the case in the future," Zelnick continued.
He added that "specifically with regards to GTA 6, generative AI has zero part in what Rockstar Games is building." Zelnick said Rockstar Games' worlds are handcrafted, built from the ground up, building by building, street by street, neighborhood by neighborhood. The CEO pledged that these environments are not procedurally generated – and they shouldn't be.
GTA 6 will almost certainly become a global success when it arrives in November, but any use of generative AI could have potentially impacted sales. There was a slew of anger against Black Ops 7, Anno 117, Arc Raiders, and others over the games' use of the technology.
Baldur's Gate 3 studio Larian recently had to confirm that AI assets wouldn't appear in the next Divinity game that was unveiled at the Game Awards last year. The announcement followed a Bloomberg report that Larian had been pushing hard on generative AI, which employees denied.
Last month, Jack Buser, global director for games at Google Cloud, said that generative AI was the "Iron Man suit" of game development, in that it allows people to do things they previously couldn't. A few days later, a survey found that over 50% of game developers say generative AI is harming the industry, the highest level to date.
Take-Two CEO says the company is embracing generative AI, but promises it has "zero part" in GTA 6
