Asked about SAG-AFTRA's strike for better AI protections, Amazon Games Boss claims AI 'has nothing to do with taking work away' from actors because 'for games, we don't really have acting'

Amazon Games CEO Christoph Hartmann was interviewed by IGN this week, and he said several interesting things. He revealed that the upcoming Lord of the Rings MMO was «still early» in development, and commented on how «the bar is so high» for doing a new Tomb Raider game. But his most startling statement came on the subject of using generative AI in the games industry, leading him to claim that «for games, we don't really have acting».

As noticed by GamesRadar, Hartmann was asked about his insights into the status of the games industry right now, to which he responded how he hoped that generative AI might «shorten the life cycle» of game development. «I think game development takes way too long, like five years per game,» he said. «It just means basically, everything will be lucky shots and hopefully AI will help us to streamline processes so hand-done work will go fast.»

All of which are fair statements, although the extent to which AI will help to solve the problem is highly debatable. In response, IGN asked Hartmann if he had been monitoring the SAG-AFTRA voice actors' strike, which was called last month for «fair compensation and the right of informed consent for the AI use of [actors'] faces, voices and bodies» in the words of SAG-AFTRA national executive director Duncan Crabtree-Ireland.

Hartmann seemed to understand the sensitivity of this topic. «I have got to be careful,» he said. «Because we are a big company and have to deal with all those organisations, so I don't want to get in the middle of it.» Then he proceeded to state that «When we talk about AI, first of all, hopefully it will help us to have new gameplay ideas, which has nothing to do with taking work away from anyone. And especially for games, we don't really have acting… The majority of the team sits in programming and that's not going to go away because that's all about innovation.» 

The news that video games don't have acting will surely come as a shock to SAG-AFTRA's 2,500 video game