For the sake of this discussion, let's first set aside all of the legal, ethical, and sustainability issues that currently exist with generative AI. Let's assume that we have a magic solution that will solve all of those problems as they stand.

The big problem that I have with generative AI right now is that it isn't good enough to do senior level work - it still makes too many mistakes, and it makes those mistakes so confidently that it's often difficult to identify what those mistakes are unless the person overseeing the AI's work already has significant expertise in the field. Generative AI is basically a super confident, often mistaken, junior developer that works very very quickly. As such, the kind of roles our magically legal/ethical/sustainable generative AI would supplant are our junior roles.

The main issue I see is one of long term sustainability. We can have our current senior devs oversee generative AI functioning as junior devs and produce a lot of work. However, we're not getting any younger - the senior devs are older and will approach retirement eventually. If there are no more juniors to become seniors, who will oversee the AI once we leave? We'd need to see the AI get to the point where it can start recognizing its own mistakes, correct them, and have a much higher success rate without hallucinations before that could happen. This would absolutely have to happen before enough of the experts in the field have retired so that we can validate the AI's ability to do the work needed. This applies to every field that AI threatens to supplant.

There was a studio named Keywords that actually tried using generative AI to build a video game as an experiment. Keywords is a very famous studio, having co-developed/assisted on many games like Super Mario Bros Wonder, Diablo 4, Alan Wake, COD: MW3 (2023), Starfield, Madden, Skull and Bones, Baldur's Gate 3, Elden Ring, and so on. Their takeaway from trying was the same that I have - AI just can't replace talent yet. Generative AI tools absolutely need the expertise of senior developers in order to reach its potential.

[Join us on Discord] and/or [Support us on Patreon]

Got a burning question you want answered?

• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter
• Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on BlueSky
• Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr
• Frequent Questions: The FAQ