Sony and Take-Two Bosses Agree: “Creativity Is for Humans, Not AI”
Two of gaming’s most powerful executives used the same stage to send the same message this week. At the Paley International Summit in New York on October 20, Sony Group President and CEO Hiroki Totoki and Take-Two Interactive CEO Strauss Zelnick both argued that generative AI, however useful it becomes behind the scenes, is not going to take over the creative side of making games.
A Shared Stage, A Shared Message
The two executives appeared together on a panel about gaming, culture and the future of entertainment, where the conversation quickly turned to artificial intelligence. Totoki said he encourages Sony’s teams to use AI in certain ways, but stressed that the technology has to be deployed while still protecting the people who actually make the work, naming rights holders, artists and creators specifically.
Creativity Is for Humans, Not AI
Totoki put his view into a single line that cut through the usual corporate hedging around the topic.
“Creativity is for humans, not AI.”
Hiroki Totoki
Zelnick made a similar point in his own way, without quite as tidy a soundbite. He described AI tools as nothing more than datasets, computing power and large language models, all of which are by definition built on what already exists, while real creativity looks forward instead of backward. He pointed to his own career at Fox, where he oversaw the release of Home Alone, a film nobody expected to become one of the highest grossing comedies ever made, as proof that the biggest hits tend to come from surprising human choices rather than anything a model trained on past data would predict. In his view, AI itself won’t put developers out of work, but developers who refuse to learn it might eventually lose ground to ones who do.
Two Companies, Two Different Relationships With the Same Technology
Both executives were careful to separate their stance on creativity from how their own companies actually use the technology day to day. PlayStation has already built AI tools into parts of its development process, and Take-Two uses it for internal workflows as well. Zelnick was specific about one high profile exception, though: there is no AI involved in Grand Theft Auto VI, Take-Two’s biggest and most anticipated release, due on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S on November 19.
Take-Two’s CEO singled out Grand Theft Auto VI as a game made entirely without generative AI.
The comments arrive at a moment when AI in game development keeps turning into a flashpoint. Just two days earlier, an Xbox manager deleted his X account after his own blunt comments about studios that avoid AI sparked a wave of backlash from developers and players alike. Totoki and Zelnick’s comments at the summit read like an attempt to find calmer middle ground: AI as a tool their companies already use internally, but never as a replacement for the people actually making the games.
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Picture Source: PlayStation, Rockstar Games
