‘An Overwhelmingly Negative And Demoralizing Force’: What It’s Like Working For A Company That’s Forcing AI On Its Developers

We’re a few years into a supposed artificial intelligence revolution, which could and should have been about reducing mundane tasks and freeing everyone up to do more interesting things with their time. Instead, thanks to the bloodthirsty nature of modern capitalism and an ideological crusade being waged by the tech industry, we’re now facing a world where many people’s livelihoods–like video game developers–are under direct threat.

These tumultuous times are of course being reported on everywhere you look, including on this very website, but one area I’ve been curious about recently aren’t the broader moral and legal battles, but what the struggle looks like for the average dev who is now having to encounter AI in their workplace.

For this piece, I spoke with a number of people working in the video game industry or very close to it, including artists, game designers, and software developers. I asked them to tell their stories about their daily interactions and struggles with artificial intelligence in the workplace, and what it means for the jobs they've been trained and hired to do.

Each person’s name and workplace has been changed to protect their identity. 

Bradley is a veteran artist who works at a AAA video game studio. They describe the company as having been founded relatively recently, with investment coming from traditional AAA executives who “want to make money, and they are trying to figure out what game to make for that”. 

They say their project’s art direction has been largely fuelled by AI prompts and generated imagery, all driven by their head Art Director, who is himself an experienced video game artist, but who now “can’t even write a fucking email without using Chat GPT”. 

“In my interview with the company I was very clear that I do not like AI-generated content”, Bradley says, and adds that the team initially said that was fine, the tech was only being used for pitching purposes. But Bradley says the reality has proven vastly different, and that the studio has made increasing use of AI-generated imagery in their team's art pipeline.

“I have no idea how he ended up as an art director when he can’t visualise what he wants in his head unless can see some end results”, Bradley says. Rather than beginning with sketches and ideas, then iterating on those to produce a more finalised image or vision, Bradley says his boss will just keep prompting an AI for images until he finds one he likes, and then the art team will have to backwards engineer the whole thing to make it work.

“He doesn't know that the important thing isn't just the end result, it's the journey and the questions you answer along the way”. Bradley says that the studio’s management have become so enamoured with the technology that without a reliance on AI-generated imagery for presentations and pitches they would not be at the stage they are now, which is dealing with publishers and investors. 

Bradley says they’ve threatened to quit if further attempts are made to use AI in the art pipeline. While the art team continues to resist the use of AI in creating actual concept pieces and assets for the game, it’s a different story when it comes to pitching the project to those publishers and investors.

“They’re finding it difficult to get funding because the game is being treated as a car salesman’s pitch, using AI-generated imagery to sell it without any actual substance or meat to back the vision up. The whole game is resting on a prompt ‘what if a game was…’, but with no idea if that would be fun, or how to make it fun. It’s madness”. 

Mitch has been working in software for over seven years. Having previously been employed in the defense industry, their last job was writing developer tools for a small tech startup creating an app. The company was built with some initial interest in artificial intelligence, though Mitch says this was met with “varying levels of scepticism” by employees. 

“I was the most opposed”, Mitch says, “to the point where I felt it was a detriment. One team member who only ended up working there for a few months was very positive on it. The CEO was sceptical but felt like it could be a massive benefit if used correctly, and the other team members saw it as a fun toy that could occasionally be useful. So it was pretty broad across the board”.

Some at the company were uneasy with the technology early on, when the team initially had just a small AI plugin through which users could chat with the app. “On the way to the airport with a co-worker we talked about the introduction of these AI-generated plugins”, Mitch says. “Both of us felt incredibly uneasy with them. Despite [my coworker] finding AI to be a fun toy, he was worried that it wasn't what he had initially signed up for, and I had more or less the same sentiment. It didn't really boil over into anything at this point since the feature didn't go anywhere, but it was still notable”.

A few months later, things started to change. Mitch says the first signs of a deepening reliance on AI came when the company’s CEO was found to be rewriting parts of their app so that it would be easier for AI models to understand and help with. “Then”, Mitch says, “I had a meeting with the CEO where he told me he noticed I wasn't using the Chat GPT account the company had given me. I wasn't really aware the company was tracking that”.

“Anyway, he told me that I would need to start using Chat GPT to speed up my development process. Furthermore, he said I should start using Claude, another AI tool, to just wholesale create new features for the app. He walked me through setting up the accounts and had me write one with Claude while I was on call with him. I’m still not entirely sure why he did that, but I think it may have been him trying to convince himself that it would work.”

Mitch describes this increasing reliance on AI to be not just “incredibly boring”, but ultimately pointless. “Sure, it was faster, but it had a completely different development rhythm”, they say. “In terms of software quality, I would say the code created by the AI was worse than code written by a human–though not drastically so–and was difficult to work with since most of it hadn’t been written by the people whose job it was to oversee it”. 

“One thing to note is that just the thought of using AI to generate code was so demotivating that I think it would counteract any of the speed gains that the tool would provide, and on top of that would produce worse code than I didn’t understand. And that’s not even mentioning the ethical concerns of a tool built on plagiarism.”

Mitch says that over the 18 months they worked with the company, its CEO had transformed from someone mildly positive about AI to emphasising to workers that “AI was the future”. “In particular, he was of the belief that developers who are able to use AI to accelerate their process are going to win out in the future. I have seen this sentiment in other places worded as ‘an AI won't replace you, but a programmer who knows how to use AI will’. He didn’t believe that 18 months ago, but he absolutely believes it now”. 

The AI’s poor code and a personal dislike of the technology meant that Mitch soon simply began ignoring their CEO’s instructions to use Chat GPT and Claude. A few months later, the entire company went bust.  

Francis is both a consultant and artist in the video game industry, and so has worked alongside art teams as well as working with agencies, studios and publishers about their creative processes. “This means I have had some truly wild conversations about AI in a professional context that make me want to walk into the sea”, they say.

Since AI-generated imagery first blew up a few years ago, Francis has found that discussions both with consulting clients and potential employers for their own art has “shifted”. They believe that most employers and outsiders they speak to don’t see themselves as part of what Francis calls an ‘AI will replace artists!’ crowd, but are more like a ‘if we use AI it’ll make an artist’s life easier’ crowd, who think using AI in art will protect their artists, not displace them.

“What follows from these discussions is me explaining why, usually over hours rather than minutes, that these tools have no place in a professional game development pipeline or production and actually hinder the development of visuals”, Francis says. “I also find myself explaining to them how the iteration and 'idea' phase of a project is where the best stuff happens, how exploring things through artistic labor is where your best ideas come to fruition, and why would we want an AI (that we don't even own) to do that for us with art that isn't ours to use?”

“I am yet to have a team or gamerunner push back on me once I actually explain how these AI art generators work and how they don't contribute in a helpful way to a project, but I have a sense of dread that it is only a matter of time until that changes, especially given that I've gone the majority of my career with no mention of them to every second conversation having it mentioned.”

This all sounds slightly more optimistic than what other people I spoke with expressed, but Francis also added that a close family member is “neck-deep in the technology side of the AI industry”, and that “while conversation with them mostly gives me the desire to purchase cigarettes for the first time in a very long time, it also gives me insight into how these people feel when they say they are 'helping' my industry and 'innovating' to make artists' lives better.”

Francis says their understanding of the AI-pusher’s outlook is that they see the entire game-making process as a problem, one that AI tech companies alone can solve. “When I’m told 'Think of how much time you could be spending instead on making the actual game!', those who have drank the AI Kool-Aid don't understand that all this brainstorming and iteration is making the game, it’s a crucial everyday part of game development (and human interaction) and is not a problem to be solved.”

“My experience here is unfortunately not singular”, Francis says. “I have had many discussions with other game developers who interact with AI engineers and savants who believe our industry pipelines need 'fixing' by them and them alone. The only other similar experience I can think of as a comparison is a snake oil salesman insisting that their magic tonic will fix all of my problems that don't exist but they insist that I have.”

Francis believes that there’s a common thread running through both their lines of work: that those selling AI tools and those advocating for their use, whatever their best intentions, think that AI is solving a huge problem games industry workers are facing. “The only issue I am facing as a professional art director in games is that I just want them to leave me and my art teams alone so we can make cool art. There is no problem to be solved here”.

Ricky is a senior game designer who says they were often asked to use AI on their last project, initially with the goal of saving time on basic tasks. One example they shared was being encouraged to use Chat GPT to do things like “generate outlines of existing games and their systems so that we could use them as references and discussion points. The issue? [The outlines] were often wrong, and I'd spend more time fixing them than if I'd just done it the old-fashioned way”.

Since the AI was generating responses for games Ricky was already familiar with, they could easily see that those responses were fundamentally incorrect. ”When I say they were wrong”, Ricky says, ” I mean they were talking about systems that didn't exist, items that didn't exist, and outlines of enemies that had incorrect explanations of their behaviour”.

“There were more superfluous issues as well -- the whole thing read like marketing speak. There were buzzwords everywhere, it wasn't concise, and if I were to try and fix these issues using different prompts, or continuing my conversation with [the AI], well, then I'm just spending time prompt-engineering instead of just writing the fucking thing myself. It was a huge waste of time, and really felt like an affront to my own expertise, which is... why I was hired”.

Ricky says they were also asked to use Chat GPT as an “idea generator”, to help with tasks like “coming up with a bunch of interesting puzzles” or “creating ideas for enemies”, supposedly to both save time and provide inspirational starting points. 

“It really weighed on the creativity of my role, and again, spat in the face of my expertise”, they say. “It wasn't just this though; the tool itself lacks the intent, context, and limitations of what we're doing. It doesn't have other aspects of the project, influences, references, or personal experiences in the back of its mind, because it doesn't have a mind. Whenever we design something for a game, it's drawn from somewhere, influenced by other things, and filtered through our own experiences as a human. These AI ideas lose ALL of that, turning it into an omega-corporate ‘back of the box’ list of ideas and features”.

Sally is an animator and 3D artist whose most recent video game work was as part of an indie studio working on a VR game. They say that AI tools made deep inroads into life at the studio, beginning with the game’s creative directors and lead designers “playing around with Midjourney” before quickly deciding that they wouldn’t need to hire concept artists, then moving on to declaring that they wouldn’t need to pay anyone at all to create the game’s 2D assets, because those could just be generated by Midjourney then edited in Photoshop. 

Sally began voicing their concerns directly with management when AI moved into the game’s voice work, as bosses began toying with new AI-generated lines trained on work previously performed by voice actors. “I raised the concern that we shouldn't be doing any of this without consent from those actors”, Sally says, “and was met with a very aggressive shutdown response which was that ‘it wasn't going to ship’ and would only be used as an internal tool, so it shouldn't be an issue at all”.

“This is pretty awful for the voice actors because there’s not really anything they can do if a studio decides to do something like this. [Studios] already have a bunch of their voice work, and often voice actors will just send the entire recording of their lines over at once. So a studio will have multiple takes of each line, and sometimes different variations of the same line, which is kind of a perfect example for something you could feed through AI”.

Sally was recently laid off from the studio, along with a few of their coworkers, and says that as far as they’re aware the studio’s plan for its next game is to use AI-generated animations trained on motion capture to replace the role of a human animator. “I think the last thing I want to add is just how frustrating it is having AI-generated art in a game that’s about to ship, alongside all the hard work that we human artists put into it. All because one of the directors wanted to cut down on ‘wasting time’ or ‘hiring one other person’”. 

Audrey is a veteran concept artist who has worked both as a freelancer and in-house at studios in the video game industry. With qualifications in both art and game design, they say that over the last few years the emergence of AI tech in the art world “has been an overwhelmingly negative and demoralizing force in my own personal workplace, no question about it”.

“My own use of AI in my current job has been minimal and against my own wishes and ethics”, they say. “Once in a blue moon I have been given a task that necessitated using AI to make very VERY quick concepts. And when I say ‘necessitated’, I would be told explicitly to use AI and make a ton of images to pick from, and I could then ‘make them look good later’. Depressing doesn’t begin to cover it”.

Audrey says that their work deadlines are “being completely fucked up as well”, as they will usually need to completely redraw AI-generated images that colleagues in other departments have relied on as placeholder art, which then shifts their own workflow and priorities. 

Audrey says their team’s overall response to AI tech has been “mixed”. “Only a few specific people higher up like to use AI and will use it regularly, while the majority of the team is neutral or completely against using it”, they say. “My own personal opinion was quite vocal. I tried to be clear about my stance on using AI, and so did the rest of the art team. I gave multiple reasons for our company to stop or minimize using it; I’d ask about replacing images that were AI placeholders or if there was a way we could use art already made instead, all of which had mixed results”.

Alfie is an experienced 2D artist in the video game industry. They recently interviewed at a startup games studio with millions in funding, and came away deeply affected by AI without even working there.

“This corporate, tech-backed startup near me were looking to hire an artist”, they say. “I went through their entire recruitment process, which took around five weeks, including a trip in person to visit them for several hours. I even took part in a brainstorming session for about an hour, where I ended up coming up with a production plan with some basic schedules. After around three weeks of not hearing anything back from them, they finally got in touch to say they wouldn’t be progressing with my application”.

Alfie wonders if the studio might have simply been using them for some free art and production consultation. “They never hired anyone for the artist position, and are using AI-generated art for their games”, they say. “There are zero artists on their team”.

Alfie has since joined a new studio, which had been experimenting with AI-generated imagery a few years back but abandoned its use entirely after finding the results neither accurate nor specific enough for in-game purposes. This studio changed course entirely, and Alfie’s hiring was part of a heavy investment in human art.

“I guess they realised that AI imagery can't solve all of your problems, and they realise just how precious real human artists are”, Alfie says. “A human artist will research the material properly, with all the nuances of human emotion and logic, and ultimately produce art assets that are historically accurate, game specific and have soul”.

Douglas is a voice actor whose jobs include recording lines for indie video games, and says their experiences discussing AI with potential employers "feels like screaming into a void". "I've gotten through to small indie teams", they say, "and some publishers have been empathetic and understanding when I try steering them away from AI, since it hurts already-struggling independent artists and actors. But it's always the larger corporations that are eerily silent and flat out seem to ignore anyone who wants to talk about the subject".

As an example, Douglas says Audible has recently begun trialling a system where actors can submit their recordings to an AI program that will duplicate their voice, then sell it to book authors for their audiobooks. Those actors will then receive a small percentage of any income the AI 'voice' generates, but Douglas can easily see that becoming problematic for the market, with existing (and upcoming) voice actors able to be easily replaced by anyone looking for a "quick and easy" solution.

I asked Douglas how they and their peers are feeling about this, and other challenges being presented by AI in the voice acting space, and their response was blunt. "Myself and a lot of my fellow voice actors are in the same boat", they say. "None of us feel like submitting our voice to an AI is worth the benefit, because it will destroy a lot of the human emotion we put into our work to help bring a story to life".

"A lot of us worked tirelessly to make even a fraction of a living doing something we genuinely love, and we're afraid of that being taken away from us, so it's looking like we have no other choice but to look for mundane work and give up our passion".

These are just some people’s personal experiences, a small snapshot of how AI is affecting the games industry. While surveys and numbers can provide some sense of scale, individual experiences can highlight the precise ways AI is encroaching into people’s workplaces and lives, how they feel about it, and how they’re responding.

As grim as some of these responses feel, I hope there’s at least some small solace to be taken from the fact that so many artists remain firm in their resistance to AI technology that devalues their work, and are championing human creators in the face of it.

Inside Baseball Week is our annual week of stories about the lesser-known parts of game development, the ins and outs of games journalism, and a peek behind the curtain at Aftermath. It's part of our second, even more ambitious subscription drive, which you can learn more about here. If you like what you see, please consider subscribing!