In a recent interview, Steam creator Gabe Newell said that developers will need to embrace AI. The Valve CEO claims that artists will struggle in the future if they don’t understand how to use artificial intelligence tools.
Gabe Newell Says AI Will Be Beneficial to Game Development
In a July interview with YouTuber Zalkar Saliev, Gabe Newell discussed various topics related to his decade-spanning career. However, when the subject of AI arose, the Valve CEO shared his thoughts on the importance of the technology. In fact, Newell predicts that people with no programming skills will become more valuable than seasoned coders due to the advantages they have with AI.
“The more you understand what underlies these current AI tools, the more effective you are at taking advantage of them. But I think we’ll be in this funny situation where people who don’t know how to program, who use AI to scaffold their programming abilities, will become more effective developers of value than people who’ve been programming for a decade.” Gabe Newell then gave an interesting analogy using the film industry.
“Imagine you’re a filmmaker, and you don’t understand how to use AI. You’re going to struggle in the not too distant future. But if you’re an AI tool user, you’re going to be even better if you think to yourself, “Oh, I can spin up a simple model to solve a very narrow problem that I have.”
To return to film, I think AI will have an impact ten times as significant as the impact of CGI on filmmaking. Especially in terms of the values that can be accomplished with those technologies. How would it affect your career trajectory in the filmmaking industry, etc?”
Steam Requires Developers to Disclose AI Use
Interestingly, while Gabe Newell believes AI can become beneficial to artists, his platform, Steam, actually has pretty strict rules about it. According to Steam’s publishing guide, developers must disclose if they’ve used AI in their games. They must also detail how tools were used explicitly in their title. This is primarily to combat entirely generated games flooding the digital store.
Now, to be clear, the Valve CEO isn’t suggesting that game developers should only use AI or not know how to code. In the interview, he clarifies that an AI tool user will be even more capable if they are also a seasoned coder who understands programming. Still, his prediction of products like games being made by people who don’t fully understand them sounds pretty jarring.
I guess only time will tell what impact AI will truly have on the gaming industry. Regardless of how you feel about it, though, Newell seems pretty confident that the technology is here to stay. And according to the Steam creator, you are better off understanding how to use AI tools instead of ignoring them.
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