AI is increasing job anxiety within the gaming industry

The gaming industry is facing various obstacles, not least among them being the rise of AI.

It’s no secret that gaming is a stressful area to work in right now. Layoffs are frequent as even major companies are forced to make cuts and job security is a rarity for many.

With the rise of AI, those working in the gaming industry share a growing concern that, despite management at some companies maintaining that human creativity goes hand in hand with AI, their jobs will be made redundant by what AI tools can do.

“The people who are most excited about AI enabling creativity aren’t creatives,” Jess Hyland, video game artist and a member of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain’s game workers branch told the BBC. Specifically, she sits on its artificial intelligence working group.

How AI is perceived within the gaming industry

Jess explained how many workers in the gaming industry suspect that company leaders and decision-makers see AI as a way to cut costs, leaving labor as their biggest expense. In particular, roles centered around concept art and other often entry-level jobs have been affected.

Those in charge of making AI tools maintain that they’re not designed to replace humans but, anecdotally at least, there do appear to be cases where humans are losing out to AI. However, the general agreement is that AI as it stands now is not capable of creating the same product as a human creative.

Nonetheless, Jess goes on to state that the bigger worry is that “jobs are going to change, but not in a good way”. Instead of being able to create their own content for games, artists are concerned that their work would end up fine-tuning AI work, rather than the opposite.

This is far from a new concern but it’s one that’s gaining momentum as AI continues to ramp up.

“The stuff that AI generates, you become the person whose job is fixing it,” said Jess. “It’s not why I got into making games.”

Featured image: Ideogram