Is AI Going To Destroy Game Development?

Why is it that certain groups of devs on the internet get upset about AI art while others don't? Or what about vibe coding? Plenty of devs are furious about it, while other devs embrace it. We're kind of at a crux moment in the indie game and software industry. What AI tools are acceptable and what aren't? Jabril and I discussed this and frankly, we disagreed on several points. Jabril is a prominent voice in the game and software industry and I was super lucky to learn from him in this conversation. Stick around because whether you like it or not, AI is going to be an integral part of your game career. How far do you want to take this tool? Well, Jabril and I try and figure this out. And I'll be honest, it wasn't easy. But before we move on, I want to thank this video sponsor, Bezi. They are the creators of this new tool that could be considered your development partner for your project. The tool uses AI to write code and scripts and has a real-time context

of your entire project like the codebase, the asset library, scene graph, and components, which means all recommendations are made specific to your project. It helps generate exactly what you need, building on what's already existed in your project. It can help with optimization and is great for handling repetitive and boilerplate tasks like debugging to let you focus more on the creative side of your game and the complex parts of the creation. It's important to mention that your project's integrity and data privacy. They're of course completely secure. Bezi is currently in early access, so make sure you go to join the wait list to be one of the first to get access simply by clicking the link in the description. Why do people get mad about AI art but they don't get mad about Claude? Why? And and I think it's because this one is an art form and this one is not. It's art. Art is different than than code. They're different. One's

more human, one's more one is saying something poetic, something from the heart, and another one is building something. They're different. Uh the arguments I've seen is because a lot of these uh image generators just steal a bunch of art and then spit it out without crediting. That that's a lot of the arguments that I've seen. That's one side of it. The other side of it is you humanity is lost. There's no more humanity in art. It's gone. There's no person behind the art, right? So one is one is yes, stable diffusion is effectively stealing. The other one is okay, but let's even say it's not stolen and all of this material that it's it's being licensed by like Adobe or something, but you're still you still have a problem which is that the game itself is not human and it doesn't feel human and it's not it doesn't have a heart. But I arts in the eye of the beholder, right? Like if I go take a walk out in the forest and I see an interesting configuration between the

trees and the leaves and the branches and the sun and the clouds and I take a picture that that becomes art, right? Because of my perspective. Um, and I I don't know. I like I do not think that AI art is something that should be used in games in this current state. That's not my position. I think that I agree with you that should be used in the concept phase um as inspiration. But at the same time, I don't think I'm the the person that would be anti- art in games. If it works well, it works well. And regardless, however you and I like it, the market ultimately decides, you know. Correct. So, man, it's um isn't it funny how this has become a massive ethical dilemma? Like AI in general is just this massive ethical dilemma. And I don't know how you solve it. I don't I don't know how do you how do you

solve any of this? I mean I I don't even know if any nation or country or government has come up with any legislation around it. You know, I mean, I'm sitting here stuck on uh Steam Steam, they're basically I don't know if you've seen Steam's um like licensing now. It's like you have to tell whether you've up whether you've used AI and it's like Well, who's not who hasn't used co-pilot? Who hasn't who hasn't used clot at least once, right? Um, how's it defined? Yeah. How's it defined? And and I'm just really curious how this all ends up, you know? Um, one of my AI predictions is that um, humanmade art will get some kind of certification process. Sure. that there will be um technologies that come about maybe

Jabril will make one where it can identify whether or not it's humanmade and it it will be a certificate or a badge given to products that are used maybe on the back end. So, for example, uploading a a game to Steam, it will go through that certification process and it might take like an hour or two and then you'll get the badge and that will that will provide value to a product. So, that's my prediction that consumers will actually care if it's certified humanmade. I think that's an interesting prediction. I can see it happening for sure. Uh the there's a lot of question on how the verification process is going to work, but I can see it at least being an attempted uh but at the same time, yeah, you know, I don't know, man. As I think deeper, there there has to be an issue,

right? like Steam is not just going to pay all these salaries to develop this without there being an issue to solve and without like an outcry of like hey we need to know the distinction between AI versus human games because I guess we can't tell. Yeah. Um and again back to my point I I don't think we'll ever get to that point. Um Yeah. But real quick quick aside if you don't mind. Yeah. My friend made this uh this piece. Can you check out in Discord? Yeah. And tell me what you think about the art piece. Mhm. That's amazing. I I do. I've seen this though. Dang it. Yeah. And I will say I'm I am not lying to you. I I'm going to tell you right now. I know this is AI. I can smell it. Okay. I'm telling you. You can tell. Am I wrong? It is AI. I was trying to keep you. Yeah. Um I've seen this one

and it's beautiful. I actually saw it at the at MidJourney. I know it's Midjourney. Um I saw it on MidJourney's website. So maybe that's because that's the reason I know because I saw it at the top of MidJourney. Fair enough. Um but the reason why I bring this up is because like this is kind of like the task that we have. Like you say that you can tell it's AI. I don't know anything about art, so I wouldn't be someone to go to to ask these qualifications. Yeah. But how many people have that skill that you have and wouldn't just verify it as human, you know? Well, that that's the thing, man. It's like that on one side, it's people on one side there's people who can smell it and they could just know they it's like uh I don't know for I always smell I always smell my sandwich meat before I make a sandwich. Same. I'm paranoid about it. And it's you can just you go it's that little funk. And it's the same is true with AI. It's like you just it a little bit of funk there. Now, I don't know if they'll be able to get rid of it. Um whether

MidJourney will, you know, adapt the model to get rid of that funk, whatever that funk is. I don't even know what it is. But that's one side of the equation. On the other side of the equation, it's even if you can't tell, let's pretend people can't tell that there's AI, that it was made with AI. What if you told them as a marketing tool that little green badge that says everything in this is fine-tuned and perfectly made by human beings. There's no LLMs, there's no stable diffusion, there's no claw, there's no nothing. My prediction is is that that will be a marketing tool and it will provide value and add value to a product. I agree. I I completely agree. Yeah, I completely agree. I just think that the the issue is going to come up eventually where someone is able to uh defraud the process and all verification badges are no longer valid. You know, man, it's

going to become a game to some people like they're like, "Yeah, I'm I'm going to figure out how to pass the verification." Probably a YouTube video for you. Yeah. You and I know you'll figure it out. That's That's why I think it'll be a huge market because it'll be a Here's what I think. I think there's going to be an eternal golden goose egg or gold mine for whoever can figure out how to build a software company that is constantly identifying AI created content. Maybe it's a legal, maybe it's for legal purposes, too. But what whoever can come up with that software that can identify what's AI created, they're going to have a a sustainable business model for the rest of eternity because they're going to they're going to, like you said, they're always going to have to be keeping up with the people who can hack the system, right?

So, I feel like it's just going to be this eternal race of trying to identify or maybe you think we're eventually just not going to care. I I do believe that the path that's the path we're wrong. I I look I I view the AI generated stuff as Photoshop. You know, once upon a time Photoshop hits your timeline, you're like, "Oh, that's clearly Photoshop." But nowadays, like you don't even question it. You know, I I do believe we're on that path. Um, I'm not totally convinced that we'll be able to get onetoone with like how like some top human artists can do. I'm not totally on that. There's there'll always be artifacts. It's just part of the style, the aesthetic. Okay, man. That's controversial. Also, hey, don't forget to check out Bezi to simplify and accelerate your development process. You can sign up for the wait list to be one of the first to get access by simply clicking the link in the description.