Electronic Arts (EA) employees are reportedly frustrated and even mocking the company internally over its push to use more AI in its development and other areas of work.
According to a new report from Business Insider, higher-ups at EA have “spent the past year urging its nearly 15,000 employees to use AI for just about everything.” This includes anything from code to concept art to even “scripting conversations with direct reports about sensitive topics such as pay and promotions.”
Employees Are Worried About Their Jobs
Employees who spoke anonymously to the outlet say that they are encouraged to use the in-house chatbot called “ReefGPT”, despite it producing “flawed code and other so-called hallucinations that they need to correct.” Those on the creative side, like character and level design, say that they are expected to train the AI software on their own created work. It’s led to a belief and frustration that these decisions will ultimately lead to the company no longer needing that type of talent, with layoffs to come.
Even one former employee, a senior QA staffer at Respawn, believes that AI was at least partly to blame for his job loss this year. He told the outlet that AI was “able to perform a key part of his job — reviewing and summarizing feedback from hundreds of play testers.”
This mandate within EA to use AI has even led to mocking among employees. One meme sent within the company Slack, according to Business Insider, depicts the following:
A meme posted last month to a Slack channel for employees at Electronic Arts shows a cartoon man asking a trio of CEOs what they want. They answer in unison: “AI!” Then the man asks, “AI to do what?” The CEOs reply, “We don’t know!” The man follows, “When do we want it?” The CEOs cheer again: “Right now!” Dozens of the video-game company’s staff responded with crying laughing emojis.
EA declined to comment to Business Insider for the story. They also haven’t responded to Insider Gaming’s request for comment. Should any public statement be made, it will be added to this story.
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