It's one of the hottest issues in the gaming industry right now, so it was only a matter of time before Nintendo of America president Doug Bowser was asked about the rise of AI in game development in his series of Switch 2 interviews. Fortunately, his response was refreshingly pro-human.
Bowser (not that one) spoke about the uses of AI across the gaming industry to
CNBC's Steve Kovach at the recent Switch 2 hands-on event in New York, stating that it
can be utilised in the workplace to assist with things like productivity: "even in my organisation, it can be used to enhance productivity and how we get things done". That said, he stated that "it's not the only method of game development" and affirmed that on Nintendo projects, "there's always,
always, going to be a human touch and a human engagement in how we develop and build our games".
"What makes our games special is our developers, their artistic capabilities and their insight into how people play," Bowser told the American news outlet, so don't expect to see any Nintendo-backed bots having a crack at Mario any time soon.
CNBC published the full interview as a video online, though you can find a transcript of Bowser's answer to the AI question below:
I'm always a little careful not to speak on behalf of the developers because I want them to talk about their art and what we do. But if you think about just technology in general to start with, as we look at technology, we always want to make sure that technology we may be leveraging — whether it's the development of our games, or if it's in our devices — is going to create a better gameplay experience. It starts there and it goes back to those smiles I was talking about generating, so that's a very important part of our decision-making process in how to use AI. Obviously, AI is very popular right now, it's being used broadly in a number of different ways — it can be used in enhanced productivity, even in my organisation it can be used to enhance productivity and how we get things done, so there's one utilisation — but what I would say is, if developers choose to use AI, and this is a discussion right now at Nintendo, it's not the only method of developing games. We still believe that what makes our games special is our developers, their artistic capabilities and their insight into how people play, so there's always, always, going to be a human touch and a human engagement in how we develop and build our games.
It's a refreshing statement, particularly after weeks of
Microsoft hyping up its new 'Muse' AI model. For now, it seems, Nintendo's development is firmly in the hands of its human developers.
