Elon Musk’s xAI wants to make video games and movies — and I already hate it

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I understand AI might not become as big as some predict, and I acknowledge it can be a useful tool. However, the idea of a game created completely by AI just feels unsettling.

It’s still unclear how good the game will be, but true to form, Elon Musk predicts his AI company, xAI, will develop a fantastic AI-created game and a reasonably enjoyable movie within the next year.

Elon Musk is consistently optimistic about Grok and xAI, believing the current excitement around artificial intelligence will last for a while. While AI has potential benefits, and some of Musk’s ideas for xAI, such as using it for scientific breakthroughs, are interesting, the idea of AI creating entire games is worrisome. It risks leading to a flood of low-quality products, similar to what happened with NFTs in gaming.

What xAI is actually building

Musk has a bold plan for xAI. He doesn’t want it to be just another chatbot or image creator—he envisions an AI that genuinely understands how the world works. If successful, this could lead to the creation of realistic, interactive virtual environments, significantly lowering development costs, especially in the high-budget video game industry.

As an analyst, I’ve been following xAI’s team building with interest, and it’s notable they’ve brought in experts like Zeeshan Patel and Ethan He from Nvidia, both with strong backgrounds in simulation and world modeling. Elon Musk has been heavily emphasizing the concept of ‘world models’ – essentially, AI that understands how things work in the real world, how objects interact with each other and respond to physics. This goes beyond simply generating text or images; it’s about creating AI that can build truly realistic and dynamic virtual environments.

We’re seeing something really interesting with this company – they’re now hiring ‘video game tutors,’ and paying up to $100 an hour! These aren’t traditional tutors, though. They’re designers and testers who are essentially teaching the AI what makes a game enjoyable. From what I understand, the ultimate goal is to reduce the need for constant human work, letting the AI handle most of the development, but with humans still guiding the overall process and making key decisions.

Grok, the chatbot created by xAI, recently got significant improvements in how it creates images and videos. This demonstrates that xAI’s technology is developing at a similar pace to those of rivals like Gemini and ChatGPT.

Why this could be bad for gaming and entertainment

Even though Musk believes some human input is still important, I’m concerned this could lead to a company that doesn’t value it. We might soon see many games created entirely by AI, potentially without players even knowing. Game development relies on emotion, unique viewpoints, and imagination, and AI could remove those essential elements.

As AI becomes more common, many artists and creators worry about their future. It’s unsettling to think about what happens to those just starting their careers or those who have dedicated years to perfecting their skills. Companies like Microsoft are already integrating AI tools like Copilot into their workflows, and it’s easy to foresee studios requiring developers to use AI, potentially leading to job losses as companies try to cut costs.

Beyond the technical aspects, there are important ethical concerns. Training AI on existing games without asking the original creators or getting their permission could lead to lawsuits about who owns the resulting content. This isn’t just a guess – we’ve already seen it happen. For example, the Sora 2 AI recently created content featuring Nintendo characters without permission, and Nintendo is well-known for aggressively protecting its intellectual property through legal action.

As someone who follows the gaming industry closely, I’m already seeing a lot of challenges – game prices are going up, consoles cost more and more, and it’s getting harder to justify all these subscription services. Honestly, I don’t see AI fixing any of these problems, at least not for those of us who just want to enjoy games and movies as a hobby. I think the core issues are more complex than AI can solve.

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2025-10-13 22:11