Take-Two Interactive, the parent company of GTA developer Rockstar Games, has reportedly laid off its AI team, including its head of AI.
Take-Two boss Strauss Zelnick has previously plainly stated that AI is incapable of creativity of its own, but this is his strongest message yet that Take-Two’s approach to AI bucks an industry trend that has seen more and more studios pivot to AI tools, most recently at the cost of human translators and human-made in-game artwork.
“It’s truly disappointing that I have to share with you that my time with T2 – and that of my team – has come to an end,” Dicken wrote on LinkedIn (thanks Kotaku). “I will take the time in a week or so to make a more reflective post on my time with Zynga and T2, but for right now, I would appreciate your help in finding these awesome talented folks new positions,” before sharing some of the skills of his team.
“We’ve been developing cutting-edge technology to support game development now for [seven] years. These folks know how to match innovation and novel problem-solving approaches with strong product design chops to create systems that empower people throughout the development workflow.”
Before leading Take-Two’s AI efforts, Dicken ended his decade-long tenure at Zynga as senior director of applied AI. He has now established LuDic AI, a consulting service “around the best-practice use of AI technologies for games-adjacent verticals”.
As for Zelnick? “Every entertainment business that was supposed to be destroyed by new technology hasn’t been,” he said recently. “When I was a little kid, calculators came along and parents were all up in arms that now schools would not teach kids math[s] because they had access to calculators. Well, people are learning math[s] today, even though there are calculators.”
Zelnick is very much an outlier, though. Many other game companies, including Krafton, Square Enix, EA, and more, have invested heavily in the new tech.
Leave a comment