Take-Two shuts down its AI research team

Game company Take-Two has disbanded its internal AI research team, which was led by Dr. Luke Dicken and focused on using AI to help game development. The team was originally formed in 2019 at mobile game developer Zynga, and Take-Two expanded its scope after acquiring Zynga in 2022. Reports say the layoffs happened in April, and most of the affected employees were working on general AI, not generative AI.

Dr. Dicken said the team was created before ChatGPT came out and before the generative AI boom. He is cautious about generative AI, believing companies have a moral duty to manage it properly, but says completely rejecting it is not the right move for big companies. He worries that the hype around generative AI is overblown, and if the bubble bursts, it could hurt the reputation of traditional AI research too. He wants the industry to remember that older AI techniques can already solve many real problems in game development.