Patrick Söderlund has certainly been around the block a few times. The former CEO of Battlefield studio DICE can also list the title of Executive Vice President of Worldwide Studios at Electronic Arts on his CV, so it's fair to say that he knows a little bit about interactive entertainment and the magic that goes into making it.
Söderlund is currently in charge at Embark Studios, which launched the competitive online shooter The Finals a while back and is about to release Arc Raiders, an extraction shooter that has plenty of people excited (including us).
While Embark has done a fantastic job of promoting its games, considering the studio's size compared to the industry's biggest players, it came under fire when The Finals launched for using AI-generated voices.
Fast-forward to the present, and it's understandable that any interview with Söderlund is going to focus on this topic.
Speaking to EDGE magazine in its latest issue (thanks, Games Radar), the Embark CEO was very clear about who he thinks should be making video games for the foreseeable future:
"The beauty of videogames, as with any artform, is that – at least so far – they can't be built by an Al. I hope they never can. The human aspect is still essential."
However, that doesn't mean Söderlund has changed his mind and is totally against the use of AI moving forward.
During the same interview, he enthuses about an AI-powered system where a new weapon in The Finals could be created simply by using a video as a guide, and then feeding it "through our tools and pipelines" to "[produce] a 3D model of the weapon you had in that video."
Söderlund clearly sees AI as a way of speeding up the creative process, rather than eliminating the need for human input:
"I know you're going to think that I'm a complete nutcase, but I don't want us to build things 10 times faster – I want us to build content a hundred times faster. If we aim for 10, we may get two, and probably can stay within the same parameters and just tweak. If your aspiration is to do something 100 times faster, you have to take everything you know and just throw it up in the air."
He's not alone; industry giant EA has just inked a deal with Stability AI to "co-develop transformative generative AI models, tools, and workflows that empower EA’s artists, designers, and developers to reimagine how games are made".
However, not all AI tools are proving to be as helpful as their creators would have us believe. EA staff have apparently been complaining that the company's internal chatbot tool is actually making life harder for them, not easier.