"It's going to evolve whether you're on board with it or not." A veteran high-ranking game developer has sounded off on the use of artificial intelligence systems in gaming, saying developers who fail to adopt the technology run the risk of selling themselves short. Speaking to IGN, former Sony Santa Monica director of product development Meghan Morgan Juinio said AI is a "tool" and "something that will augment" human creators, not replace them. "At least for right now, that's how I see it. It's going to evolve whether you're on board with it or not, so I want to be at the forefront of helping to guide how that goes and how we use it," Juinio said. She added: "I think if we don't embrace it, I think we're selling ourselves short." Juinio went on to say that developers in the video game industry have been using forms of generative AI for decades already, singling out the SpeedTree tool that was used all the way back in 2006 to help populate the foliage in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. Developers have used procedurally generated and handcrafted assets in development processes for a long time already and generative AI could be the next evolution of that, she said. Just because a developer can use generative AI doesn't necessarily mean they should, however, Juinio said. "I think as leaders in the video game industry it is on us to figure out not just can we do it with AI, but should we? And it's a case-by-case type of decision making process and what's true for game X might not be true next year for game Y," she explained. Finally, Juinio said games today absolutely need human developers to form the ideas of a given project, mentioning that God of War's story is a "human story that is based on human experiences." Juinio is not the only prominent game developer to believe that adopting AI can help the video game industry. Masahiro Sakurai, who is best known for creating the Kirby franchise and for his work on the Super Smash Bros. series, has said the AAA game development scene is unsustainable but that AI can help. Dead Space co-creator Glen Schofield, meanwhile, believes AI can help save the "broken, beaten, battered" games industry. Sony has been using AI tools for game development for years, crediting machine learning systems for helping speed up development on Marvel's Spider-Man 2. EA Sports said CFB 25 might not have turned out as good without the developers using machine-learning and AI. Meanwhile, Candy Crush developers who got laid off by Activision Blizzard said they are being replaced by AI tools they helped create. A recent report from Financial Times said EA might look to further implement AI systems to help ramp up development amid its private sale to an investor consortium. Workers at EA have blasted the proposed sale over a range of concerns, including the possibility of mass layoffs and studio closures. Regarding concerns from workers about AI across the global games industry overall, 30% of developers cited in the survey mentioned above said they believe generative AI is having a negative impact on the video game business (up 12% from 2023). The surveyed developers cited things like IP theft, energy consumption, and AI program biases as contributing to their feelings toward generative AI.