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In what has been one of the craziest industry sagas I've seen in a long time, PS5 driving simulator Rideshare "Stimulator" — which looked fun during its debut last month — is now being berated for its use of generative AI.
It all started with former Saber Interactive writer Stella Sacco posting on social media just a couple of days ago.
After seeing Rideshare's announcement trailer for the first time, she revealed that she was actually the project's lead writer — until her role was given to AI platform ChatGPT.
This claim alone was enough to get plenty of people riled up, but Sacco also spilled the beans on Rideshare's AI voice acting, and the fact that Saber hadn't disclosed its use of AI on the game's Steam page.
Sacco's post has led to a backlash against Rideshare and Saber. Any mention of the game on social media is being swamped with negative replies, the trailer comments on YouTube are now a disaster, and the title's discussions tab on Steam is being bombarded with criticisms.
Sacco went on to clarify that her boss at developer Unigine backed her writing ability when higher ups at Saber started pushing the idea of using AI. But it wasn't enough, with Saber CEO Matthew Karch ultimately deciding that involving ChatGPT would be good for the game's marketing.
This story gets crazier, though. In response to all of this, Karch has issued a concerningly pointed statement to This Week in Video Games, which begins: "Stella who? I had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalised the feature set."
It continues: "Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready."
“We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers."
And just when you thought Karch couldn't possibly make the situation any worse, his statement concludes: "As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest."
Naturally, Karch's incredibly dismissive statement has only stoked the flames, inviting even more criticism towards Rideshare and Saber.
Sacco has since said that she finds Karch's response "remarkably pathetic".
"I think it should be obvious to anyone who reads that statement that he’s lashing out because he did not want people to know there was AI use in the game," Sacco wrote in a follow-up statement to This Week in Video Games.