Using AI Appropriately

I had the pleasure of helping develop the PlayStation 5 video-game console when I worked in Research and Development at Sony Interactive Entertainment. One of the advantages of the hardware is that the file system is fast enough so it is not necessary to keep multiple copies of digital assets. What does that mean? When you create a virtual world, it is made up of a number of digital assets such as trees, rocks, buildings, or any number of other things we find in the real world. Most of the time, those assets are used over and over again. For the sake of an example, a forest is made up of a lot of trees. There may be only 5 different tree models created for a game and then they are reused many times to give the illusion of a forest. With the PS4, game designers would copy those 5 trees hundreds of times. That isn't necessary on a PS5 as you can have just the 5 tree types and point back to each one on the file system any time you need it. Assuming each tree requires 4KB of memory (an arbitrary value pulled out of thin air) and you have 1000 of each tree in a game, the PS4 would require 4MB for each tree used while the PS5 only needs 4KB. Theoretically PS5 games should be significantly smaller than for other game consoles. This becomes very helpful for games like Red Dead Redemption 2 that required 2 Blu-ray disks for the game. For physical game disks, it saves a bit of money and for digital downloads, they don't take as long to put on your system.

So what does that have to do with using AI appropriately? It boils down to why game developers only make 5 tree models. Most gamers don't slow down and look at every tree in a forest to see if it is different than all the others. So why take the time to create more than 5? If you can throw the problem at a generative AI program, you can let it create hundreds of different trees. This provides a level of uniqueness currently missing in a lot of games. This totally eliminates the benefit of the PS5 over other gaming consoles as its games once again become bloated. The reality is that while the PS5 doesn't require duplication of digital assets doesn't mean game studios are using the feature. You will still find copies of digital assets spread throughout quite a few games. Why not make the games more unique?

I have been thinking about this issue for the past couple of days and came up with another area where the use of AI should be applied. I walked through my kitchen this morning to get myself some breakfast. My floor is a high-quality laminate with a simulated pine surface. While pine is great looking, it is a very soft wood and makes horrible flooring that is easily scratched and dented. Using a high-quality laminate allows it to be almost indestructible yet look beautiful. The downside to a laminate is that there are only about 5 patterns on the boards. They repeat quite often and if you look closely you notice a lot of the boards are the same. The laminate floor company could use AI to create 100 different patterns instead of just 5. This would create a much more unique floor.

Yes these two solutions for generative AI don't seem to be high priority. After all if they were, companies would spend the effort to make their products more unique. The beauty of using AI is that products can become more unique and special without humans having to spend more time making it happen. You will still need those humans to fine-tune what is generated but their time can be spent being creative and not doing repetitive and mundane tasks.