The rise of AI, perhaps (hopefully) a ruthless T-series Android army roams the streets of a crushed city and hunts down the pathetic remnants of humanity that it can put a whole bunch of people out of work and transform much of our artistic landscape into soulless, six-finger sludge (at least in the short term). It is somewhat reasonable to worry. Strauss Zelnick, CEO of Take-Two, doesn't think so, but actually speaking at a recent TD Cowen conference, he predicted exactly the opposite.

Zelnick began commenting on the astronomical rise in the cost of making games, even though the gaming industry has access to tools that make development more efficient than ever before. The reason is that the creation of advanced development tools has allowed the studio to perform more complex tasks. "We will turn our attention to other things because we will be able to do a lot more efficiently, but other things will probably cost and time.

Those "other things" also still need real human people. "I also don't think generative AI will reduce jobs," Zelnick said. "It's crazy, it's actually crazy. It's not going to make people irrelevant. It is going to change the nature of certain forms of employment. And that's a good thing. Zelnick acknowledged that people in several areas will be replaced by different forms of AI. But in the long run, he believes it will be too good.

"In Internet shopping to the people, hey open the box and say, 'Hi, I'm Bob and, why did you introduce me to the sofa for the shop."You know Bob is an AI, right?Zernick said. "You are aware that Bob is not Bob, right" Those who were "Bob" three years ago sat in a call center in India and they are now doing more interesting jobs, because these are highly educated and competent people, and better jobs will probably come along to pay them more. It was a good idea."It's an optimistic outlook. He may be right in the big picture, but it is in anticipation of the damage inflicted on individuals by many who are about to be left behind by the transition to new technologies. Yes, these losses are an inevitable byproduct of an ever-evolving society, and macroeconomically, at least, we see it (so far) more or less, but the idea that anyone working in a call center is suddenly trying to move to a more fulfilling role in a more lucrative field is an illusion: they are not those

Zernick's use of agriculture in the United States indirectly reinforces his point, and I would unintentionally assume, on the dark side of the technological transition, that in the mid-1800s, 65-70% of the U.S. population worked in agriculture, he said; today, that figure stands at less than 2%, but farmers eat exponentially more people in the country. It may be true (I'm not sure about the exact numbers), but the process of getting there involved, among other things, the farm crisis of the 1980s. The peasants suddenly had no freedom to write, paint, or conduct oceanographic research.

We cannot ignore the potential for such pain to follow after transformative technologies, including generative AI. But accepting that this is the nature of the society we have built, Zelnick's entire comment seems reasonably measured: generating AI is a creative force and Zelnick seems very confident in his declaration.

"I have Whatsapp chats with a lot of Silicon Valley CEOs, but the conventional wisdom out there is that 'AI will make us all unemployed,'" he said. "That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard. The history of productivity tools is that it increases employment. It increases value, increases yield and promotes growth. All these things happen."