Wow, if you were on social media overnight, you’ll have witnessed an unholy sh*tstorm surrounding comments made by Larian gaffer Swen Vincke.
As part of a much bigger Bloomberg interview – where he confirmed the new Divinity game will be turn-based and released potentially sooner than expected – he commented on his company’s use of generative AI.
In the article, it’s claimed that Larian is using the controversial new technology to flesh out “PowerPoint presentations, develop concept art, and write placeholder text”.
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The report goes on to quote Vincke as saying no generative AI will make its way into the new Divinity game, and that “everything is [by] human actors”.
But this clarification didn’t stop the quotes from going viral, prompting the executive to respond on X (or Twitter).
He said:
“Holy f*ck guys, we’re not ‘pushing hard’ for or replacing concept artists with AI.
We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do.
I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists.
We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use Google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison.”
Journalist Jason Schreier, who wrote the original Bloomberg article, has since released the full transcript of his conversation with Vincke.
While we won’t reproduce the entire discussion here – we’ve embedded it via BlueSky below – we don’t really get the impression generative AI is the be all and end all for Larian right now, as it sounds like the team’s merely exploring its uses.
In fact, the executive admits multiple times that the technology isn’t actually improving his team’s efficiency all that much, but he cautions “if somebody finds the golden egg and you’re not using it, you’re dead in this industry”.
Ultimately, you’ll need to make up your own mind about how much this all matters to you. What’s evident, though, is that Larian’s previously unshakeable reputation has taken a hit today – regardless of which side of the fence you sit.