Phil Spencer Posits Generative AI Tech Preserving Old Games, Called ‘Idiotic’ by Expert – Push Square
GuestGuestLogin | Sign UpPush SquareGuestLogin or Sign UpMuse technology “not a solution” for game preservationThis week, Microsoft unveiled its latest venture into generative AI technology, and it’s getting a mixed reaction, you could say.Called Muse, the tech is a first-of-its-kind AI model that’s able to replicate a game based upon video footage and player control inputs.Microsoft’s AI research teams are working closely with Ninja Theory on Muse, and have trained the AI on seven years’ worth of footage and player data from Bleeding Edge, an Xbox One online multiplayer action title.Based on all this data, Muse is able to reproduce the game environment and player actions.The technology is still in its infancy, but with time, it seems Microsoft is optimistic that Muse can be used as a tool to help aid video game development.Dr. Michael Cook, an AI researcher and game designer, lays it all out in plain English in a blog post. Aiming to dispel the assumption that Muse will be used to generate original games, Cook says it’s more about helping a developer understand how players might react if changes are made to an environment.”They made a tool that let game developers edit a game level using existing game concepts like adding in a jump pad to a place where there wasn’t one before,” Cook explains. “They then gave this new level to their model, and asked it to show what it thought the footage of a player playing from this new position would look like.”With all this understood, Phil Spencer, in the above video, talks about a potential use case for Muse in the future, whereby it could be fed footage of old games in order to replicate them on modern hardware, without needing the original software or engine.Cook calls Spencer’s comments “idiotic”.He says that it’s difficult to understand what AI models do and don’t capture; in the example of Bleeding Edge, the years of footage Muse has been trained on still won’t contain everything found in the game, or all possible player actions. In other words, an AI reconstructing an entire game based on video and gameplay data couldn’t ever be truly accurate.”Even if this model was a perfect replication of the original executable software, this is not the be all and end all of game preservation,” Cook says. “A generative model of what game footage maybe looked like once might be a nice curio on the side of a real preservation process, but it is always going to be inferior to other ways we approach the problem.”The truth is that it’s almost certainly far too early to draw any real conclusions from what Microsoft has presented so far. Muse may eventually have practical uses within game development, but it may take some time before it gets there.And, based on what Cook and other industry people are saying about its use for preservation, that seems like it might be a stretch regardless.What do you make of Microsoft’s Muse AI tech? Discuss in the comments section below.Please note that some external links on this page are affiliate links, which means if you click them and make a purchase we may receive a small percentage of the sale. Please read our FTC Disclosure for more information.[source microsoft.com, via youtube.com, youtube.com, possibilityspace.org, eurogamer.net, bsky.app]About Stephen TailbyStephen has been part of the Push Square team for over six years, bringing boundless enthusiasm and a deep knowledge of video games to his role as Assistant Editor. Having grown up playing every PlayStation console to date, he’s developed an eclectic taste, with particular passion for indie games, arcade racers, and puzzlers. He’s also our go-to guy for Sonic-related matters, much to his delight/chagrin.Comments 46Yeah this can get in the bin. Special place in hell for suits who are destroying the creative arts.Yeah this sounded like nonsense to me, but the Xbox guys were eating up Phil’s words yet again. People have got to learn at some point.@nessisonett And the sycophants who cheer it on too.This is a wait to see it in real world use type thing. If it works, it works. I’m not going to prejudge something that isn’t in the masses’ hands yet.One thing I will say is I’m not a fan of negative opinion articles. There’s nothing in this post that is positive. Even within the first sentence the article states: “This week, Microsoft unveiled its latest venture into generative AI technology, and it’s getting a mixed reaction, you could say.”.However, this article doesn’t reference a mixed reaction only negative. This is really just a hit piece. It’s like I’m reading Foxnews.com.Would take hundreds of thousands of videos and inputs, if not millions and that would just be one game. A.I isn’t smartDon’t know if it’ll work or not but it’s way too early to judge. Honestly don’t think you can call it “idiotic” or a godsend at this point. Time will tell.worked out well with the GTA trilogyWhy, art without the human element is soulless, appealing to people who don’t think about the slop they eat.AI will just kill off all creativity in gaming, already seen what a disaster it can be when used for voiced dialogue, and the imperfections when used for images. So yeah this Muse or whatever can go do one.I’m surprised there isn’t a bigger backlash within the gaming community about this, usually any AI used in games brings a lot of backlash, imagine if this was Sony 😬.They just want to feed games to their A.I. so they can fire everyone and have the A.I. make games instead.I remember when MS said “the power of the cloud would be revolutionary” and that it can render a fully destructible city in Crackdown 3…yeah.@UltimateOtaku91 Indeed, it would take far less than this by Sony for people to get their pitchforks outI have to say, game preservation is a hilariously odd justification for what the wider implication is here.I thought the point of all Xbox hardware using the same software architecture was so that emulation would be easy? Where does AI come in? We’ve unfortunately seen what AI can do for games in some choice screenshots of the GTA Definitive Trilogy…@nessisonett May I ask, if a generative AI tool is used to help a developer quickly test a myriad of scenarios based on changing level geometry to see if that change is worthwhile, is that destroying the creative arts?Hey Phil, this isn’t it chief…@nessisonett True. Phil Spencer was supposed to turn xbox around. It seems all he’s done is help run it into the ground.I have little knowledge of video game technology. So I can’t say I understood most of the technology talked about in this video. Hopefully this new technology can help reduce game development time and improve npc ai.Removed – inappropriate language@wildcat_kickz AI absolutely has uses as a tool. But the problem is that that isn’t how it’s going to be used. How it should work is as a tool to help creative people create games. How it’ll actually work is that suits will fire the creative people and then try to replace their creativity with AI.@Ultimapunch I’m not saying that AI won’t be used that way, but couldn’t you make that argument about anything? A tool is a tool. Kitchen knives can be used to kill people. Should we not have them at all?Using AI is not the full solution, but part of the process. What MS could do is use AI to run the program and see what errors that it run into and fix the errors to make the game backwards compatibility. Sony could do the exact same thing to get older Playstation titles working on modern consoles.”It could be fed footage of old games in order to replicate them on modern hardware without needing the original software or engine.”Yeah, that’s not preservation. At that point the game would be something completely different.@JackiePriest Oof, that would be awful IMO. Also seems like an incredibly resource-intensive process with potentially uncanny, abominable results.Proposing this as a means of replicating games shows a misunderstanding of what AI actually is.Maybe one day AI will replace Phil Spencer.So what, you feed it some youtube Let’s Plays and you get your own ***** version of said game?Oh boy, that won’t flood the stores with even more shovelware@wildcat_kickz Kitchen knives can be used to kill people. And that’s why you wouldn’t give them to someone who says they’re going to use them to kill people. Executives in the game and film industry have been perfectly and abundantly clear that they’re most interested in AI so they can cut labor costs. That means firing creative people and replacing them with AI.@Ultimapunch I may be wrong, but I haven’t really seen any situations where executives have outright said that they want to reduce their creative workforce by leveraging A.I.; it’s mostly been us folks projecting that onto them. I mean, the whole point of A.I. IS to be a cost-saving measure, by being a time-saving measure, in so much as it could reduce the more tedious aspects of creative work. My point is I’m more interested in the opinions of the rank and file developers who might be able to leverage the tech to make some bold choices, even if they stumble for a while. I read the whole article by Dr. Cook and found some very interesting tidbits in there. Cook is also very critical of Phil Spencer’s insinuation that they could use A.I. to recreate old games, which I agree is pretty stupid.Edit: To be clear, I in no way advocate for games being made by A.I., but rather want developers to use it as a tool, similarly to how they use procedural generation to create worlds (a la No Man’s Sky).Name a better duo than Phil Spencer and a bad take that will take a lot PR to fix.Anyways, AI is a tool used for automation of a proccess, not the whole freaking proccess and this is definitely not a good use for this tool.”We can feed images and videos and it will replicate the gameplay”, or, hear me out, you could feed it the GDD of all IPs you developed over the years, along with sales data and other stuff. Data like this is more reliable than “videos and images”, and it also could steer the development to something more aligned to what your consumer both likes AND want.@wildcat_kickz Do not presume that I don’t know what I’m talking about. The degree and subsequent industry experience specifically dealing with generative AI taught me one thing – that it is the most fundamental danger facing mankind since the nuclear bomb. It’s already being used to destabilise democracies across the world. This is the less serious application of generative AI but the same dangers apply. If a developer says they would like to use it as a helping hand, the suit pulling the strings will find a way to use it to replace that dev outright. You’re saying that it’s ok that Phil’s spouting nonsense because Mr Professor says it’s nonsense, but the difference is that Phil literally runs Xbox. It doesn’t matter how stupid his ideas are, he has the means and the opportunity to implement them no matter what the experts say. Just look at Trump, it’s very easy to just ignore people who know what they’re talking about in favour of your own misguided ideas. Ego and power are a very dangerous combination.Would you call an A.I. recreation of the Mona Lisa preservation? If the your answer is no, congratulations. You understand the difference between art and product.I mean, he’s right. In this case, Phil Spencer is an idiot. AI definitely has uses in the gaming industry (AI upscaling is genuinely great when used well, and that is a great way to help older games, I’m just saying.) But yeah, that’s not how the tech works. Go look at videos of that AI minecraft, it just doesn’t work. There would just never be enough training data to feed it for it to even get close to recreating games accurately. And that’s ignoring the moral concerns that also arise (loss of jobs, and the absolute copyright nightmare that could come out of something like this.) But I just enjoy how little tech executives actually know about tech. It’s really funny. Removed – unconstructive feedbackIt sounds like there will be less creative employees but more trillions will be made with ease because the money hungry pigs want more fodder, I can imagine some of them are drooling at the mouth already thinking about it.I saw the article about this on PX, but never actually watched the video.Kind of a shame the AI is getting used by watching gameplay videos to generate a game.I thought the AI was being used to like somehow catch all the runtime calls that the game makes to actual hardware in order to translate them to something DirectX 12 could understand to write a better emulation layer.Anyone who knows how A.I tech has been progressing could tell you this being designed was an inevitability.No point holding it against the creators. Instead watch and lambast those who use this technology for the wrong reasons in the wrong way.Microsoft know this and are likely just trying to dissuade the knee jerk reactions with silly words@nessisonett I made no such presumptions. I merely gave an example of A.I. being used in a positive manner and asked if you agreed.Let’s say you’re right, and A.I. will inevitably be used (and is already being used) in a destructive and evil manner. How would using it in a more positive way be out of bounds? The technology is here and will remain an increasingly more prevalent part in our lives.Take your nuclear bomb comparison: it’s true, the nuclear bomb is a force of pure destruction and evil. But nuclear energy has the possibility to be some of the cleanest, most sustainable power generation there is.Evil people will use tools for evil purposes. But those tools can be used for other things, too.Dr Cook is cooking Phil Spinner 🤣@Orpheus79V I’m primarily Xbox (well have been until this generation now more PS5) and I think it’s extremely early/alpha and borderline useless unless they can port old games without source code to say a new game engine on current generation hardware.It might be a good tool for something for games but it is way too overblown. I.e. should be a blog post at most in its current state.Phil: Are you guys ready for some slop?!Removed – inappropriate language@wildcat_kickz That requires trust in the capitalist machine. Look at nuclear power, do you genuinely see cheap, plentiful energy or do you still see coal and gas being extracted, price gouging by the energy companies and a reluctance to spend the upfront cost to commission nuclear power plants? The money men win every single time, it’s better to never let them near these sorts of tools than have blind faith that things will work out.So I was going to comment on people not watching/reading before commenting… and then proceeded to do exactly the same thing…. then hit pause (deleted my comment) and decided to have another go.I actually think this is is just a load of bunk… there’s two things – firstly, this has NOTHING to do with games preservation… that’s just Phil doing what Phil does (say whatever is needed to make the medicine go down). This literally is all about game creation and acceleration. It’s about rapidly developing maps/levels/features quickly through automated systems to ‘play test’ without the need of actual humans. This isn’t about making ‘content’ but it’s about laying out games; environments; puzzles – this is entirely about reducing the development iteration time – but by doing that, it’s also about reducing the human game design element.I think this is literally about making the conveyor belt move faster, NOT better. They may say it’s about enabling, but it’s really about replacing human trial-error; to sand off the uncomfortable elements in a game to ensure that gamers have the smoothest experience. This isn’t replacing game devs – but it’s making their choices and visions less important; and like a lot of corporate choices, it comes down to revenue flow… how to keep the beast (of subcription models) fed on time. Edit – think of it like this – this replaces the need to have people playing the game (with all their subjectivities) iot provide feedback to the devs. So it means they are less cognisant of what ‘actual human players’ feel, and will depend more and more on what the AI tells them about their own game flow.At least that’s my (slightly better based after watching the video – if always slightly abrasive) Friday opinion.PS – I also have to say, Phil is not looking well. I hope he’s intentionally shedding weight, because he’s looking so gaunt of late. Whether you like XBox or not, Phil has definitely been one of it’s staunchest of advocates… that unfortunately had to sell his soul to ensure that he wasn’t the boss whose job it was to turn-the-lights-out. I hope he is well – even if what he was saying was marketing bs.Edit – and yes, there’s some real research questions hidden within the word-salad that Katja is saying… however, that’s not what Microsoft is interested in. It’s how to do X with less. If they could train a model to make an entire game without a person (or with a handful of people) then that would be seen as an entirely commercially justifiable ends. The fact that they are going to some effort to distract by categorically saying it’s not about “content” means that they know this actually cuts deeper than environmental/character art/narrative content. This goes to fundamental design. Content is actually relatively easy to generate… this goes further and deeper.The smartest thing anyone has said this year. Slimy Phil should get another reward for this lol.@nessisonett You’re right that we are still waiting on reliable nuclear energy generation. If/when people realize that it is the cleanest, cheapest, safest (with proper infrastructure) form of energy, maybe we’ll see real progress there.But you keep straw-manning my argument. I have no interest in defending “evil suits” and I don’t have “blind faith” in them either. I don’t want A.I. to replace real developers. I want it to help them. Is that unrealistic? Maybe. But none of us are the decision makers, so I don’t really see the issue in defending the ideal. I’m defending the possibilities of A.I.. From my perspective, A.I. is a tool and you can’t assign morality to a tool. You can only assign morality to the user. A.I. definitely has real, legitimate dangers associated with it, but those dangers will continue to be real, whether we utilize it for good or not. Unless you go out and disappear every single A.I. developer, the tech will continue to advance and people will find a way to exploit it. But to me, it’s wasted potential to not also research how to use it positively.Daily reminder that gen ai can’t create anything. It just barfs back out what you feed it.It is literally incapable of original creation, it’s a mimic, it can only do what it’s designed to do which is copy things. Monkey see monkey do.AI and preservation is, at the outset, two incompatible concepts. Absolutely ridiculous. This industry is run by absolute fools. 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