You know it's bad for AI when even Peter Molyneux, king of overpromising, is tepid on its use in game dev: 'I think we have to be very, very careful'

Peter Molyneux smiling at the thought of nfts.
(Image credit: 22Cans)

Peter Molyneux has somewhat of a reputation for overpromising that I will now proceed to gently rib him for—sweeping statements about carving your name on a tree and that name still being there years later, to the fiascos of Godus and the awkwardness of Curiosity, which promised a life-changing revelation inside a blockchain cube and then… didn't do that.

Given his flirtation with the blockchain, you'd be forgiven for thinking Molyneux might be rather taken with AI. After all it, too, promises the world and delivers very little—alright, that's a tad mean. I like Fable, and while it was never the game Molyneux said it'd be, it was still a decent RPG that existed and had charm. Which is more than can be said for the deep dream nightmares the torment nexus has been cooking up over the past few years.

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"It's going to cause disruption … But you know what? We're human beings. We've always evolved. We've never stayed still. Societies have changed, and we just deal with it."

More than anything else—more than Larian being chastened out of using the tech for concept art by its fans, or Capcom swearing off AI assets, or Arc Raiders phasing out its AI voice acting—this is what has me hopeful that the slop isn't here to stay.

I mean sure, it has its use-cases, but even those have narrowed over time. Using it in concept art doesn't just thin out the creative process, but it also winds up leading to big fiascos that can cost games awards when a piece of "placeholder" invariably slips through the net (there's a reason why placeholders are meant to be noticeably bad).

Molyneux, of all people, saying that it's not very useful feels like a "Jason figured it out" moment. Bless his cotton socks, but I'd honestly expected the man to be arm-deep in AI praise at this point. Maybe he's just mellowed out a little.

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Harvey Randall
Staff Writer

Harvey's history with games started when he first begged his parents for a World of Warcraft subscription aged 12, though he's since been cursed with Final Fantasy 14-brain and a huge crush on G'raha Tia. He made his start as a freelancer, writing for websites like Techradar, The Escapist, Dicebreaker, The Gamer, Into the Spine—and of course, PC Gamer. He'll sink his teeth into anything that looks interesting, though he has a soft spot for RPGs, soulslikes, roguelikes, deckbuilders, MMOs, and weird indie titles. He also plays a shelf load of TTRPGs in his offline time. Don't ask him what his favourite system is, he has too many.

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