Take-Two CEO says AI could increase employment and productivity, as long as IP isn’t infringed

Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick says not only does he think AI won’t lead to job losses, he believes it could lead to increased employment.

In an interview with GamesIndustry.biz, Zelnick was asked what role AI plays in Take-Two‘s strategy, and whether there are any guardrails the industry needs to implement to protect itself.

Zelnick replied by saying he feels AI is just another tool, that he’s certain it won’t lead to redundancies and that it will help productivity and profitability.

“Artificial intelligence is an oxymoron, there’s no such thing,” Zelnick said. “Machine learning, machines don’t learn. Those are convenient ways to explain to human beings what looks like magic.

“The bottom line is that these are digital tools and we’ve used digital tools forever. I have no doubt that what is considered AI today will help make our business more efficient and help us do better work, but it won’t reduce employment.

“To the contrary, the history of digital technology is that technology increases employment, increases productivity, increases GDP and I think that’s what’s going to happen with AI. I think the video game business will probably be on the leading, if not bleeding, edge of using AI.”

Take-Two is set to release GTA 6 later this year.

Zelnick then acknowledged the argument that AI can result in infringement of other creators’ intellectual properties and copyrights, but added that he could think of no other concerns besides this.

“In terms of the guardrails, if you mean not infringing on other people’s intellectual property by poaching their [large language models], yeah, we’re not going to do that,” he said. “Moreover, if we did, we couldn’t protect that, we wouldn’t be able to protect our own IP.

“So of course, we’re mindful of what technology we use to make sure that it respects others’ intellectual property and allows us to protect our own. Apart from that, I really can’t think of any new guardrails that need to be implemented.”

Zelnick isn’t the only CEO who believes AI will be beneifical in the development of his company’s products. Last year Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson outlined the transformative impact he believes generative AI can have on the company and the wider games business over the next five years.

Wilson said that in the past it might take six months to build an in-game sports stadium, but last year that time shrunk to six weeks, and over the coming years it could maybe be cut to six days.

And while FIFA 23 has 12 run cycles for how the players move in the game, EA Sports FC 24 has 1,200 created with generative AI.

While some workers in the industry have expressed concerns about AI’s potential impact on the job market, Wilson claimed developers within EA are embracing the technology, which we said is arguably most effective when used to augment developers’ capabilities rather than replace them.