Starfield
While it’s true that Microsoft has focused its AI efforts to date on things like integrating Bing with OpenAI, that’s about to get supercharged as a result of the insane drama with weekend involving former OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.
While the story is still developing, the genesis was Altman being pushed out by his board for reasons that still remain unclear, and after some waffling about whether he’d return, Microsoft’s Satya Nadella announced that they’d hired Altman to lead a new AI division — along with other former OpenAI figures, and possibly even hundreds of current OpenAI employees threatening to resign.
Microsoft’s furious charge into AI will trickle down into all aspects of its business, and that includes its sizable gaming division.
Just two weeks ago, Microsoft announced a partnership with a company called Inworld AI which promised to bring generative AI to video games. This includes things like AI generated dialogue that function like current AI chatbots, and even “dynamic storylines and quests” that are produced from that system.
Here’s a few examples from the company itself:
A push into AI would be something Xbox has in its toolkit that Sony and Nintendo or most other publishers do not. Not at this level, and especially not when Microsoft has just significantly beefed up its AI division with the Altman and OpenAI hires.
Although in the gaming sphere, that may be generally viewed as a bad thing, depending on how its implemented.
When the Inworld AI partnership with its generative dialogue and plotlines were announced, both developers and players grimaced at the thought. Elsewhere, every time it’s uncovered that AI is used in games, from High on Life using AI background art to The Finals using AI-voiced narrators, there’s some amount of backlash. Video game voice actors also now find themselves in a SAG-AFTRA-like situation having to do battle with AI replicas of their voices that can be used to narrate any part without their permission.
So while Microsoft will have probably the best AI team in tech after this OpenAI coup, there is a long, long road to go to prove to players that AI content in games isn’t going to be terrible. And on top of that, they have to prove that AI is supposed to be a tool to assist game developers rather than replace them. That same line is often used on artists or writers, but it’s been cold comfort to most.
It certainly does not feel like Xbox will be a huge primary focus for AI development immediately, but as we can see it is already starting. I’m picturing some potentially useful, non-controversial things we could see from it, like bringing back the integrated Xbox Cortana functionality from ages past, only now it’s a smart AI that can chat with you in your console.
But AI-generated NPCs and story quests? Ehh, hard pass on that. For now, at least.
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Pick up my sci-fi novels the Herokiller series and The Earthborn Trilogy.
