John Carmack: Calm Down About Video Game AI Tech Demos, Folks
The fear over industry disruptions due to technological advances is so predictable that we have the entire “buggy whip” analogy pre-built to rebut it. For the uninitiated, the analogy harkens back to when the automobile came into wide circulation and the disruption it had on the makers of horse buggy tools, like the whip for the horses, if they didn’t adapt. While some may have argued that the automobile was a danger to those businesses, the truth is that these new vehicles opened up so many other economic opportunities both for newly created jobs opened up by cars and within the transportation industry for those willing to adapt that it was actually a net benefit to jobs and the economy.
It may feel like artificial intelligence is everywhere these days, but the truth is that we’re still in the very early stages when it comes to how this technology will be used in the future and what effects it will have in all kinds of markets. In the video game industry specifically, we already have examples of how generative AI used in gaming isn’t even close yet to the product of human artists, nor a replacement for the gaming output of human beings. But that isn’t stopping some folks from worrying out loud that use of AI in the gaming industry is a threat to industry jobs.
In some cases, it will be, of course. But that should be a temporary concern, just like the buggy whip manufacturers. More important is what the use of AI in gaming can mean for increased output and as another tool for developers to use to create a better industry ecosystem. Industry legend John Carmack recently made this point when responding to some criticism for Microsoft’s recent demo of an AI-generated facsimile of Quake 2.
Carmack’s comments came after an X user with the handle “Quake Dad” called the new demo “disgusting” and claimed it “spits on the work of every developer everywhere.” The critic expressed concern that such technology would eliminate jobs in an industry already facing layoffs, writing: “A fully generative game cuts out the number of jobs necessary for such a project which in turn makes it harder for devs to get jobs.”
Carmack responded directly to these concerns in a lengthy post. “I think you are misunderstanding what this tech demo actually is,” he wrote, before addressing the broader concern about “AI tooling trivializing the skillsets of programmers, artists, and designers.” Carmack positioned AI as the latest in a long history of technological advancements that have transformed game development.
“My first games involved hand assembling machine code and turning graph paper characters into hex digits. Software progress has made that work as irrelevant as chariot wheel maintenance,” Carmack explained. “Building power tools is central to all the progress in computers.”
It’s the right argument to make, frankly. We’re a long ways off from AI being able to build entire, quality games from start to finish, as Microsoft’s own tech demo showed. Its output was nowhere close to being a one to one recreation of Quake 2. It was much closer to something like allowing players to experience the AI’s impression of the game. In the immediate, this demonstrates that human beings are still very much needed and that the output of AI is more akin to Carmack’s analogy than a job-stealing dev-bot.
But maybe someday it gets way, way better. In fact, that’s probably nearly an inevitability. There’s no reason to think that the long term is one where AI creates video games all on its own sans human handlers that have no input and therefore no jobs. Instead, it’s far more likely that this will be yet another tool human developers will have to create output faster, to create output better, or to otherwise assist human beings in their work.
Tim Sweeney of Epic Games chimed in on the conversation as well.
Ultimately, Sweeney says not to worry: “There’s always a fear that automation will lead companies to make the same old products while employing fewer people to do it,” Sweeney wrote in a follow-up post on X. “But competition will ultimately lead to companies producing the best work they’re capable of given the new tools, and that tends to mean more jobs.”
And Carmack closed with this: “Will there be more or less game developer jobs? That is an open question. It could go the way of farming, where labor-saving technology allow a tiny fraction of the previous workforce to satisfy everyone, or it could be like social media, where creative entrepreneurship has flourished at many different scales. Regardless, “don’t use power tools because they take people’s jobs” is not a winning strategy.”
We have no choice but to progress, in other words. Adapt or die. All the clichés. But we should also have our eyes open to the opportunities AI could create in the gaming industry and others, rather than wallow in doom and gloom.