One of Dragon Age's Creators Called AI a "Deadly Plague" That Makes Developers Lazy

Former BioWare writer and one of the creators of the Dragon Age series, David Gaider, sharply criticized the active use of generative artificial intelligence in the gaming industry. In his opinion, such technologies not only create legal and ethical problems but also deprive aspiring specialists of the opportunity to master the profession.

In a new interview, Gaider, who worked on Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II, and Dragon Age: Inquisition before leaving BioWare in 2016, reminded that many modern AI models are trained on copyrighted materials. According to him, this can lead to serious legal consequences, even if the moral side of the issue is set aside.

However, he considers the main problem to be the impact of AI on the training process of young developers. According to Gaider, many routine tasks that are now proposed to be handed over to artificial intelligence were traditionally performed by junior employees and helped them gain practical experience.

He noted that generative AI is increasingly used to perform the most important creative tasks, while people are left only to correct errors. In his many years of experience, editing a poor result usually takes more time than creating work from scratch, and the outcome is still mediocre.

Gaider emphasized that automating all simple tasks can seriously harm the future of the industry. If aspiring specialists stop performing entry-level work, they simply will not have the opportunity to acquire the necessary skills.

Criticism also touched upon programming. The developer negatively assessed the growing popularity of the "vibe coding" concept, where a programmer describes the desired result in plain language, and artificial intelligence writes the code.

According to Gaider, generative AI performs poorly with refinements and iterations, is unable to consistently make small changes, and creates serious difficulties in correcting errors. He also questioned the usefulness of creating prototypes with AI, as the team in such a case does not gain an understanding of how the final product works.

In addition, the screenwriter considers the idea of using artificial intelligence to create concept art and game systems to be questionable, as they turn out to be soulless, contain errors, and often cannot be reproduced by artists or fully supported by the team itself.

In conclusion, Gaider stated that the industry should be extremely cautious about generative AI, at least until clear regulatory rules appear and guarantees that models are trained exclusively on legally obtained data. He also criticized company executives who expect to replace specialists with cheap automation and urged not to perceive AI as a full-fledged substitute for human labor.