Epic Games Delays Disney Project, Asks Developers To Use More AI (yahoo.com)
- Reference: 0186278490
- News link: https://games.slashdot.org/story/26/10/12/2128209/epic-games-delays-disney-project-asks-developers-to-use-more-ai
- Source link: https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/epic-games-delays-disney-project-182441018.html
> Epic Games delayed the release of an upcoming video-game collaboration with Walt Disney and [1]told its developers to use more artificial intelligence tools to finish the game , according to people familiar with the project. The title had been slated for release in March, but is now delayed with no new date communicated, said the people familiar, who asked to not be identified because they weren't authorized to speak publicly.
>
> Developers on the game, a shooter featuring characters from the Marvel and Star Wars franchises, were instructed to implement an "AI first" production model using tools such as Anthropic's Claude. Humans will then manage and guide that work. "No more hand-written code," one of the game's directors told staff in an internal message reviewed by Bloomberg. The director added that all art for the game would be "generated with full AI workflows."
>
> Even before this announcement, the maker of the popular Fortnite game had been pushing hard for the use of AI across all of its divisions. But this is the first time a major video-game company has attempted to build a title primarily with AI. "We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do," said Jake Jones, communications director at Epic Games, in a statement to Bloomberg News.
[1] https://finance.yahoo.com/technology/ai/articles/epic-games-delays-disney-project-182441018.html
slop it up, faster now (Score:2)
Slop machines to 11!
Anyone wondering why Tim was upset... (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the reason why Timmy had a child tantrum on twitter when Steam decided it would add an AI tag games containing AI allowing consumers to avoid this goopy turd like the cholera it contains.
AI-first is a real engineering shift (Score:5, Interesting)
Gearing up to be AI-first is a real engineering shift. With AI-first development you have to lean extra extra hard on integration, end-to-end, and fuzz tests, i.e., "behavioral" tests. Very similar to how reinforcement learning needs to bang around in a simulator before it can figure out what to do, AI-first software projects need to invest heavily in "simulator" tests (NOT unit tests) that the AI can "bang around" on (and have to pass) before you let it merge/release. This is a big shift for engineering teams that are used to thinking mathematically/axiomatically/constructively: the code is correct because it was correct before my change, and I keep it correct each time I make a change. With AI you have dozens of people who can change 100s, 1000s, or more lines of code in a commit (and that's actually the goal) so changes easily violate that base case. The massive increase in testing reliance brings with it massive increases in VM pool infra, build infra, CI, test suite configurability, etc..., etc... So AI-first coding is a huge engineering shift going from carefully controlled code with lighter testing, to generating probabilistically controlled code with huge suites of tests, along multiple dimensions, that can run very fast, concurrently. It's also a big culture shift. It takes time so it makes sense that mature firms running large projects are trying to get it in place before their competitors do.
Re: (Score:2)
I can see what you described being useful to stay ahead of hacks and cheats, but I also imagine that is where the real arms race is.
Whose work are you using/stealing? (Score:1)
If the AI model is trained on public-domain material or "commodity" material that doesn't contain real creative content along with creative content developed in-house or with the blessing/license from the creator/owner, that's fine.
But if it's importing creative and unique content from elsewhere without permission, that's a lawsuit waiting to happen. Probably lots of lawsuits.
Plus, a significant fraction of the game-buying public is looking to support creators financially, rather than just "buying a game."
Just one question, I've been away from my desk.... (Score:3)
Who is Al ?
The guy in the Paul Simon song?
Re: (Score:2)
Yes.
Not any more! (Score:4, Insightful)
> "We're embracing AI-accelerated development, led by Epic developers who are the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do,"
I would amend that to read "... led by Epic developers who used to be the visionaries and creative drivers for everything we do,".
If AI takes hold and is successful under the guidance of said visionaries, then it will replace those visionaries as soon as the models advance enough. That's the end game here - no pun intended.
get ready for memegames (Score:2)
AI can deliver turnaround times that humans can't.
That military operation that hit the headlines this morning? There'll be a AAA team shooter based on it available on Steam tonight.
Re: get ready for memegames (Score:1)
"AI can deliver turnaround times that humans can't.
That military operation that hit the headlines this morning?"
The one that blew up a bunch of little girls? Maybe turnaround time isn't the most important goal.
Re: (Score:1)
You mean the one where there was an active military radar installation on top of a building on a military base and the families in Iran blamed the regime for deliberately using human shields? The same regime that killed around a hundred thousand little girls and their families in January?
You don't care about little girls in Iran. If you did you'd want the regime that kids thousands upon thousands of them just for asking for basic human rights gone as soon as possible. Instead you shill for it at every oppor
Epic Sucks (Score:2)
Epic hasn't made a halfway decent game in over a decade and Unreal Engine 5 is buggy nightmare.
"No more handwritten code." (Score:2)
What a total Wankstein. Sounds like a detached exec who's never written any code in his life.
AI slop games = AI slop prices (Score:3)
Nobody in their right minds should pay $70-$80 for a game made this way.
Epic are the kings of slop (Score:2)
Even before AI they cranked out nothing but slop for fortnite. Skin after skin after skin and they only started making anything else when fortnite skin sales started to drop and like every publicly traded company on Earth they have to grow endlessly and at the exact same or better rates than they did last cycle.
Our entire economic system is built on endless highly rapid growth to keep the Epstein class fed. Basically we're all running from the dragon hoping it eats The Hobbit before it eats us. And it's
So it's full speed ahead on AI-slop then? (Score:5, Insightful)
Then I see no reason to give human-generated earnings to a company that does not value human programmers and artists.
Re: (Score:2)
There will be a future with a machine and a human economy. We need to do our part to support the human economy.
Individual action won't work here (Score:1)
The ruling class has decided AI is going to replace us. One of them just casually spent close to $300 million on the midterm elections without so much as a second thought. Your individual purchases are completely irrelevant to the face of that.
This isn't something the free market can solve. It is a fundamental shift in human society and culture. Rugged individualism can only take you so far. And it turns out you can't actually pull yourself up by your own bootstraps. That used to be a joke but we took i
Re: (Score:2)
There will be a future with a machine and a human economy.
Is the human economy something like a duracell battery?
In all seriousness: Anyone who uses AI is being used BY AI, to train it to do their job, so that it can in future replace them.
AI's energy thirst is already competing with humans' need for food and warmth..
Re: (Score:2)
> Then I see no reason to give human-generated earnings to a company that does not value human programmers and artists.
It's a game company. Odds are, they never valued programmers or artists.
Are the original founders still in charge? (Score:1)
> It's a game company. Odds are, they never valued programmers or artists.
There is little mystery in such things, just check to see if the original founders are still in charge.
Re: (Score:1)
Great news! In the very near future there will be no human generated earnings. Everything will be owned by a handful of the Epstein class members and the rest of us will fall over ourselves to see if we can get just a tiny piece of their glorious wealth.
At least that's the goal anyway. Remember the problem AI is designed to solve as you. Your wages. That is the problem AI is designed to solve.
No matter how little you have it's still too much for Elon Musk and other members of the Epstein class. And
Re: (Score:2)
Theoretically it would be possible to use "AI tools" in a way that would not lower quality and could even leave more time for creative high-level work to the human programmers and artists... but we all know this is not what is going to happen, in reality "use more AI" just means "release poorly understood, sloppily made, buggy stuff faster, and continue to blame the fewer employees for the bad results".
Re: (Score:2)
It's a good thing they just admitted that this game is going to be ineligible for copyright then.
And since it's ineligible, the DMCA doesn't apply when it's cracked.
The increased AI use might be testing not coding (Score:1)
> So it's full speed ahead on AI-slop then?
Not necessarily The increased AI usage might be for testing and not coding game functionality.
Yeah, that is an optimistic interpretation given we are still in fantasy land regarding AI coding assistants. We will repeat mistakes similar to past mistakes. In the past if behind schedule just add programmers. Today if behind schedule just add AI coding assistants. The latter will likely just slow things down and the former did.