God of War star Christopher Judge brings the hammer down on Amazon exec's "we don't really have acting" in video games AI defense, praises The Last of Us 2 performance

Christopher Judge, the actor behind Kratos in Sony Santa Monica's God of War games, has joined the ever-growing chorus of voices protesting controversial comments made in defense in AI in video games by Amazon Games CEO Christoph Hartmann.

Amid members of SAG-AFTRA striking against some of the world's most prominent game developers in search of better AI protections, Hartmann told IGN he'd like to see more AI being used to speed up development processes. He also said the tech could "help us to have new gameplay ideas" and isn't about taking away human jobs. That last part he explained by saying "we don't really have acting" in video games, which is the crux of what so many people in the industry are upset about.

Thank goodness there’s really no acting in video games…Absolutely brilliant ❤️ https://t.co/tDG4doKFtfAugust 25, 2024

Judge's response is short and to the point, retweeting and commented on an engrossing and emotional mocap performance by The Last of Us 2 star Ashley Johnson. "Thank goodness there’s really no acting in video games," Judge said, seemingly in reference to Hartmann's recent comments. "Absolutely brilliant".

For clarity, the video Judge was responding to was in direct response to a news story about Hartmann's comments, so it's not just timing and context that suggests Judge is responding to the Amazon Games boss. It's a pretty unambiguous jab.

The blowback from the games community has been unified and includes rebukes from countless developers and voice actors across the industry. Although Judge is among the most prominent to respond to these specific comments from Hartmann, the overall movement to protect people in the games industry from being replaced by AI is much, much bigger than any one name.

Nintendo isn't big on generative AI, and with Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom was careful with automated art – "The game could potentially end up losing something valuable".

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