"They pressed the AI button, it might have been a bad idea, but in truth there's no un-pressing that button," says Epic CEO, immediately after Epic shows a "conversation" with an AI that embarrasses us all
"When the world's on fire, we like to back up and remember ou🐽r aims as g❀ame developers," Tim Sweeney says

AI was predictably one of Epic's contributions to today's 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:State of Unreal live , with creator platform VP Andrew Grant demoing a "conversation" with an LLM AI persona, one example of the "Persona Device" coming later this year. Tech 𓆏heads simply cannot resist any opportunity to name things like Dr. Robotni♔k.
The intent was to show "how simple it is to set up a character for your game," which brings the unavoidable subtext of how simple it might be to replace a writer you wo🐷uld – gasp – have to pay. The method was back-and-forth with an AI trying to get Grant to press a button in-game. (I've outsmarted the computers once again; I would simply not press the button.) The result was a hackneyed conversation with a character that unavoidably lacks soul – not something I personally look for in games.
I did initially find myself nodding along with follow-up comments from Epic CEO Tim Sweeney, who, equipped with cargo pants, saiꦡd, "They pressed the AI button, it might have been a bad idea, but in truth there's no un-pressing that button." Funny how this kind of rhetoric regularly comes from folks who are pre𒀰ssing that button so regularly and fiercely that their index fingers have calluses to rival lead guitarists.
Sweeney continues: "At 🔜Epic, we've been thinking about what this future of AI means for us and for the whole industry. When the world's on fire, we like to back up and remember our aims as game developers. It's to make fun g𝔉ames. And AI can help us with this."
You do have to wonder why the world is on fire – we're all trying to find the AI who did this – but Sweeney makes a fair point. AI can be a powerful tool. "And so we've come🀅 to see AI as an opportunity to have a multiplying force on human creatives," he says. I mean, I guess; enhance those pipelines, man.
Here's where my head stops nodding and my neck calcifies like a fossil. "The ability for a small team of indie developers to create characters with personality and infinite dialogue is a superpower," Sweeney reckons. This overlooks how small teams of indies already make characters with personality, something this Persona Device is incapable of, and that games don't need or want infinite dialogue because, for one of many things, that's just infinite ways to g🐲o off-script and reveal the soulless computer you are one-sidedly talking to.
But wait, the neck loosens: "The power to accelerate code development and 3D content development of all sorts is going ⛎to make game development better and more accessible for everybody," Sweeney 🎃concludes, before launching into his mandatory dig at Apple and pausing for applause.
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Using AI to reduce busywork and streamline development processes might be good and all, in the s❀ame way machines have replaced a lot of repetitive physical tasks💮, but unless we're talking about Atlus JRPGs, I'm not particularly interested in seeing, let alone talking to, a Persona Device. I'll stick with characters written by creators capable of the conversation that represents half of all art, thanks.

Austin has been a game journalist for 12 years, having freelanced for the likes of PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree. He's been with GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize his posit🐷ion is a cover for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a lot of news and the occasional fea❀ture, all while playing as many roguelikes as possible.
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