Peter Molyneux has somewhat of a reputation for overpromising that I will now proceed to gently rib him for—sweeping statements about carving your name on a tree and that name still being there years later, to the fiascos of Godus and the awkwardness of Curiosity, which promised a life-changing revelation inside a blockchain cube and then… didn’t do that.
Given his flirtation with the blockchain, you’d be forgiven for thinking Molyneux might be rather taken with AI. After all it, too, promises the world and delivers very little—alright, that’s a tad mean. I like Fable, and while it was never the game Molyneux said it’d be, it was still a decent RPG that existed and had charm. Which is more than can be said for the deep dream nightmares the torment nexus has been cooking up over the past few years.
Well, consider me flummoxed, because in a recent interview with the BBC, Molyneux is actually pretty tepid on the tech: “AI is not of a high enough quality for us to really use in games right now,” with a shocking dose of reason and proportionality. “I think we have to be very, very careful that there are safeguards in there, so we can’t abuse this power that AI gives us.”
Before you get too excited, Molyneux does seem to think AI will still usher in some sort of industrial revolution-tier reimagining of the world, which is not an opinion I share (at least, of the technology in its current, frequently mistaken state):
“It’s going to cause disruption … But you know what? We’re human beings. We’ve always evolved. We’ve never stayed still. Societies have changed, and we just deal with it.”
More than anything else—more than Larian being chastened out of using the tech for concept art by its fans, or Capcom swearing off AI assets, or Arc Raiders phasing out its AI voice acting—this is what has me hopeful that the slop isn’t here to stay.
I mean sure, it has its use-cases, but even those have narrowed over time. Using it in concept art doesn’t just thin out the creative process, but it also winds up leading to big fiascos that can cost games awards when a piece of “placeholder” invariably slips through the net (there’s a reason why placeholders are meant to be noticeably bad).
Molyneux, of all people, saying that it’s not very useful feels like a “Jason figured it out” moment. Bless his cotton socks, but I’d honestly expected the man to be arm-deep in AI praise at this point. Maybe he’s just mellowed out a little.
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