Valve recently announced that Steam will allow games made with the assistance of generative AI tools as long as they are disclosed. If game developers are telling the truth, we will see much more disclosure in the near future.

In a survey of over 3,000 game developers conducted by the organizers of the Game Developers Conference, 31% of respondents said they personally use generative AI in their work, and 18% said they do not personally use it, but their colleagues do In other words, 49% of developers use some form of generative AI. This means that 49% of developers work in studios that use generative AI in some form.

Generative AI tools are most controversial when used to generate artwork, text, and voices that players directly experience. For example, Square Enix's upcoming game "Foamstars" has been heavily criticized for its developers' use of Midjourney to generate "0.01%" of assets. The free-to-play shooter "The Finals" also recently used AI to generate voice lines, angering voice actors and sympathetic gamers.

However, not all uses of generative AI are visible or audible. For example, AI can generate code snippets using tools like ChatGPT and GitHub Copilot. According to the survey organizers, "The majority of respondents were interested in coding assistance and speeding up the content creation process." Developers were also intrigued by the idea of using AI to automate repetitive tasks."

Large-scale language models such as ChatGPT have even been used as general research and writing assistants that can, as some examples, generate marketing copy, summarize meeting transcriptions, and solve math problems (getting bad or discredited information (there is a risk). And ultimately, research shows that the most advanced use of generative AI in the gaming industry is in the finance, marketing, PR, production, and administration departments, while the narrative, art, audio, and QA departments are the least advanced.

The use of generative AI is not always approved by the companies where it is used. Anecdotally, I have heard from one Silicon Valley engineer that he uses ChatGPT to help him code without his boss's knowledge. In another instance, a company was surprised to learn that an AI system like Photoshop's "Generative Fill" tool was being used to create artwork they had published. Wizards of the Coast was recently forced to admit that AI-generated elements were used in marketing images for Magic: The Gathering.

Only 12% of respondents said their company has a policy prohibiting the use of generative AI; 7% said some tools are allowed at their place of work but others are not; 2% said they are required to use AI, and the majority said their workplace policy or said that the use of generative AI tools was optional.

Despite the apparent widespread use of generative AI in the game business, developers said they are concerned about the ethical issues it raises: 42% of respondents said they were "very concerned" about the ethics of generative AI, another 42% were "somewhat concerned" and another 42% "somewhat concerned" and 12% "not concerned at all.

"I think completely replacing someone's job is a genuine concern," said one respondent. 'It should be used to build capacity, not to reduce the workforce.'

"This is theft, plain and simple," said another, "It's 'flashy and high-tech' and no one seems to care about copyright or ethics. Public shaming doesn't seem to work, so actual regulation is needed."

Meanwhile, interest in another controversial technology is on the decline: in this year's GDC survey, developers who said they were "somewhat" or "very" interested in NFTs and cryptocurrencies were down 27% from last year.

CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article stated that an earlier version of the survey found that 49% of game studios were using generative AI. The survey shows that 49% of developers work for studios that use generative AI.