Fortnite Boss Says AI Has Lots Of Problems, But Will Change The World And Create Jobs

Tim Sweeney, the founder and CEO of Fortnite studio Epic Games, has weighed in with his thoughts on AI and generative AI. Advancements to these technologies have been much-discussed of late in the world of video games, entertainment, and numerous other business sectors. Speaking to researcher Matthew Ball, Sweeney said AI will change the world and create a lot of jobs, while also noting there are numerous issues and problems in the road ahead as well.

Starting off, Sweeney commented on how companies train their AI models. Sweeney said companies should not train their models on data if they do not have “clear and explicit permission from the creator of the data to do that.” Researchers at universities who are not creating commercial products, however, could consider training data this way, Sweeney said.

“If a company buys ownership of the data from the creator of the data or gets permission to use it for training AI, it’s fair game. And they shouldn’t train AI on that data if they don’t have that permission,” he said.

Research institutions can be treated differently, Sweeney said, because there is “much more compelling public interest” in this area.

Part of what’s giving AI a bad name for some people in the current market is how AI has been “taken over by the Wild West,” Sweeney said, with companies doing whatever they want to train their models.

“I think that’s unfortunate because AI is a really important technology that is going to change the world. I think that after this first generation of rather wild practices fades away, we’re going to see companies with a lot much more responsible data usage practices coming to the forefront and use of AI in a way that’s much more well-thought-out and specialized to particular usage cases,” he said. “I still think that the idea of creating a chatbot that’s supposed to have all the world’s knowledge and be an agent of good is a very long way from coming to fruition. And the folly of all the current efforts, both being lamed down to the point where they aren’t as useful as they ought to be, but also doing things that are egregiously wrong, like telling you to eat rocks. It’s kind of an artifact of this technology being adopted way too widely, way too quickly.”

Sweeney went on to say he wished AI researchers didn’t immediately turn to commercializing their models, and instead launched programs like ChatGPT as a work-in-progress tool where everyone knows and understands it’s going to have all manner of issues.

“We shouldn’t let that early misadventure with AI dissuade us from the long-term value of the technology” – Tim Sweeney on AI

“If ChatGPT were, like, some university’s chatbot, with this massive disclaimer of this chatbot might make stuff up and say ridiculous things at times and it’s just no big deal, don’t treat it too seriously. But unfortunately, everybody in their race to have their first-mover advantage has gone away from the standards that govern most forms of technology development, and that’s leading to regulatory backlash and all sorts of other problems, and that’s very unfortunate,” he said. “But I think as optimists for the future of technology, we shouldn’t let that early misadventure with AI dissuade us from the long-term value of the technology. And so I’d encourage the same sort of patience I encourage with blockchain and cryptographic technology in the field of AI.”

As for generative AI and its impact on game development, Sweeney said it will lead to “dramatic productivity gains” because creators will be able to create all manner of objects much more quickly than before.

“If you want a bunch of cool trees, you can go into the Quixel library and get a tree off the shelf from us for free for Unreal Engine use. But if you want a specific tree that meets a specific need for a specific scene in your game, you can have a modeler build it right now, and that takes an enormous amount of time and expense. In the future you’re going to be able to create a mashup by giving some high-level instructions as to exactly what kind of tree you create,” he said. “And based on training data that was properly owned or licensed, it will make the tree you want. I see dramatic productivity gains coming to a lot of areas of game development.”

Sweeney also predicted that generative AI will increase “employment opportunities” across the technology sector. Games made using generative AI could be far more rich and robust, and this will require more people, he said. “We’re going to take all the people we have and perhaps some more and build even bigger, better games using the technology,” he said. “And so the technology is going to enable us to improve the scope and quality of our products and build bigger and better games. And so that will certainly come and it will come at different rates. You have to remember, the reason that we had a massive revolution in generative AI and text AI beginning last year was because of the 30 years of research that had gone into the foundations of how to train and manage those sorts of AIs.”

The fear of job displacement due to AI is a significant one among video game workers, and companies like EA have been up front in saying advancements to AI systems will lead to job losses in the short term. In the long run, more jobs could be created thanks to AI, EA and others have said.

The video game industry is a long way off from implementing generative AI to its fullest extent, however, Sweeney said. “This AI isn’t going to come to all fields with equal speed. 3D object generation AI isn’t going to be revolutionized next year. It’s probably going to take many years because a lot of the things that were done for 2D have not yet been done for 3D, nor does anybody know how to do them,” he said. “And so there’s a huge amount of research and development effort needed to unblock AI contributing to specific fields in specific new ways and creating game content at the level of quality that you expect.”

Sweeney said he can’t predict just how much of a positive impact on video game revenue generative AI might have, but he said it’s “definitely going to bring us the capability of building better, bigger, and more compelling games faster.”

He added: “Better games means players will be spending more. Better games means that companies get more returns by investing more in building games. And so you’ll probably see increases in employment and you’ll probably see a lifting of all ships and also an upending of a lot of things.”

Finally, Sweeney reflected that in the early days of Epic, its artists drew pixels. Now, Epic’s artists create 3D objects. And in the future, Sweeney said the things its employees do with mouse clicks will be different still. “I think the value of creators will not be undermined by AI in the long run because all of these companies are competing with each other. We need a lot of humans to make a lot of awesome creative decisions about how these games are to work,” he said.

Epic is not the only big believer in AI in the tech space. Microsoft partnered up with ChatGPT and reportedly invested $10 billion into the AI company. Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer believes AI will be a positive, additive force in gaming. Strauss Zelnick, the head of GTA parent company Take-Two, believes in AI as well, but he doesn’t think a rival developer could use it to make a genuine GTA competitor anytime soon. PUBG creator Brendan Greene’s new game, meanwhile, is using advanced machine-learning to create massive and realistic open worlds. Nintendo, too, has said it sees the potential in using generative AI for game development.