‘The Human Touch Will Be Crucial’: PlayStation’s CEO on AI in Game Development

Hermen Hulst, one of PlayStation’s CEOs, has spoken to the BBC during the brand’s 30th anniversary. Before diving into the history of the company, Hulst was doorstepped with a question about AI in game development. It has been a sore spot for a while, with some developers leaning much more into AI, sometimes at the cost of human employees.

Hulst assured that while AI has the potential to revolutionise game development, ‘preserving the human touch’ is still of the utmost importance.

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Authenticity

In an interview with the BBC, Hermen Hulst and Hideaki Nishino, the co-CEOs of PlayStation, spoke about the past, present, and future of the brand.

To open the interview, Hermen Hulst spoke about AI in game development, given that he oversees software at Sony’s gaming giant, while Nishino focuses more on hardware development.

Hulst explained:

I suspect there will be a dual demand in gaming: one for AI-driven innovative experiences and another for handcrafted, thoughtful content

Striking the right balance between leveraging AI and preserving the human touch will be crucial.

In many ways, AI is allowing for extraordinary leaps in the development process, allowing for procedural generation, the likes of which were previously unobtainable. AI is also being used to automate laborious, repetitive, or operationally impactful tasks that might have traditionally slowed down the development workflow.

In others, it’s putting jobs at risk, ‘stealing identities’, and putting fear into industry workers the world over.

As the interview unfolded, Hulst and Nishino explored the success of Astro Bot, recent leaps into live-action adaptations, and the origins of PlayStation. Nishino laid out a neat anecdote, recalling his mother’s toy store and how he would demo gaming devices for unaware shoppers when the technology was just starting to emerge.

Do you think there’s a world where AI and human-based game development can exist in sheer harmony? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum.

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