Microsoft released a new, lengthy research document about a “generative AI model designed for gameplay ideation,” and the reaction to it has been almost universally negative.
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Codenamed “Muse,” the model was developed by AI initiatives at Microsoft in concert with Hellblade dev studio Ninja Theory. Microsoft said its research focuses on “exploring the capabilities that models like Muse need to effectively support human creatives.”
Microsoft claims Muse can generate “complex gameplay sequences that are consistent over several minutes” that were made by “prompting the model with 10 initial frames (one second) of human gameplay and the controller actions of the whole play sequence.” Basically, the AI is trying to do the work of a human developer by generating visual elements and simulating real player actions, or at least speed up that process.
And as you may expect, not many people seem to like this information, based on the comments under the YouTube video. But many gamers in the replies to the news figure that, if AI is so great, maybe it should take over at Microsoft to make better decisions?
“You guys buy up all of the devs and then fire them for AI,” one YouTube commenter said. “Maybe AI should take over corporate leadership? That would save a ton of money and let people that don’t run their brand in the water keep their jobs.”
“Can we get generative AI to run Xbox?” another said. “At this point, it’ll be a vast improvement over the current execs.”
Microsoft is already in hot water with its fans after taking several first-party titles multiplatform to PS5 and Switch, and this likely won’t help. In an attempt to stave off the inevitable wave of facepalms, Microsoft even got its own first party employee to hype up the announcement.
“It’s been amazing to see the variety of ways Microsoft Research has used the Bleeding Edge environment and data to explore novel techniques in a rapidly moving AI industry,” said Gavin Costello, technical director at Ninja Theory. Costello went into detail with the example of Bleeding Edge, the 2020 game from Ninja Theory, and talked about integrating AI into the game to create new agents and allowing the model to make up new gameplay sequences with assistance and guidance from humans. Both Xbox and Ninja Theory leadership seem convinced of the generative AI model’s potential in game development.
One of Bleeding Edge‘s AI-generated gameplay sequences
But nobody really seems to care about how cool this news may be, with another YouTube commenter saying “I’m incredibly hesitant to advocate for this adoption when publishers are doing everything they possibly can to ‘downsize’ the human talent.” And that’s a common thread in the community’s response.
Regardless of how any gamer or developer feels, however, it seems like AI is here to stay. Its grand scheme effects on the industry, and world as a whole, will be seen and felt in due time.
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Xbox has officially opened the generative AI floodgates, and Phil Spencer wants to use it for game preservation and save titles that
