Generative AI is being torn to shreds across the internet these days, and so it's starting to feel like corporate figureheads are choosing their words a little more carefully.
Case in point, Razer co-founder and CEO Min-Liang Tan has been pushed to clarify his company's stance on all things AI after a recent investment announcement, in which it plans to pump a whopping $600 million into AI over the coming years.
In an interview with The Verge, Tan attempts to make it clear that Razer's AI priorities lie in game development, and not generative AI.
"I think we’re unhappy with generative AI slop, right? Just to put it out there. And that’s something that I’m unhappy with," Tan reassures.
The CEO continues: "Like any gamer, when I play a game, I want to be engaged, I wanna be immersed, I wanna be able to be competitive. I don’t want to be served character models with extra fingers and stuff like that, or shoddily written storylines, so on and so forth. I think for us, we’re all aligned against gen AI slop that is just churned out from a couple of prompts and stuff like that."
It feels a bit like Tan's telling people what they want to hear at this point, before diving into Razer's actual goals: "What we aren’t against, at least, from my perspective, are tools that help augment or support, and help game developers make great games."
"So if we’ve got AI tools that can help game developers QA their games faster, better, and weed out the bugs, I think, along the way, we’re all aligned, and we would love that," he explains.
Of course, for many of you reading this, there could be a very blurry line between using AI in game development and using generative AI to 'create' something. You could easily argue that one side of the coin can quickly bleed into the other — especially as AI tools become more widespread and potentially more advanced.
But Tan reiterates: "The way that we see it is that AI is a tool to help game developers make better games."
He concludes: "In this case, rather than replacing human creativity – and that’s something I personally feel very passionately about – we want to figure out how we use AI in the gaming industry to get AI to do things better. In the broader scheme of things, I think that’s what we have been focused on."
So, what do you make of all this? Do you agree with Tan in that AI can be — and possibly should be — a boon to developers, or is it a slippery slope? Explain yourself in the comments section below.