For all the impressive-looking output that can be produced with models like ChatGPT, critics insist that AI can’t understand genuine human creativity. Investors who think artificial intelligence will make video game designers obsolete have the same shortcoming.
Traders have in recent weeks been on the lookout for any potential losers from the growth of AI, with seemingly each new update prompting a sell-off in a different sector. Video games were hit by Google’s Project Genie, a so-called world model that can create interactive worlds with a few prompts. Shares in US groups such as Take-Two Interactive and Roblox, Ubisoft and CD Projekt in Europe, and Japan’s Nexon and Capcom all suffered sharp declines.
Genie is, for now, an “experimental research prototype”. Having seen the speed of progress in other areas such as AI-assisted coding, however, investors feared that consumers would soon be running around in their own personalised worlds, with traditional studios forgotten.