Dragon Age Lead Writer Condemns AI As A ‘Virulent Plague’

The co-creator of Dragon Age, David Gaider, has said generative AI is a “virulent plague,” and resoundingly condemned its use in games development. Speaking to GamesRadar, the former BioWare writer called the tech “terrible at iteration” and called the results of genAI “soulless.”

GR spoke to Gaider for the site’s extensive investigation into why developers are so loudly against genAI, published earlier this month, and have now published an extended version of the Dragon Age writer’s comments.

Gaider, who was lead writer on Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age II and Dragon Age: Inquisition (and not forgetting a senior designer on Baldur’s Gate II and Knights of the Old Republic!), has multiple issues with genAI, beginning with its basis in plagiarism. “I think the fact that generative AI is frequently trained on data regardless of whether creators or owners have agreed to have their data pillaged in this manner opens up any use of it to all sorts of future legal issues – even if one chooses to ignore the moral implications, which one really shouldn’t,” he told GR. He added, “‘If we’re not allowed to steal whatever we need, then the AI won’t work as well!’ isn’t a very compelling argument.”

Mentioning the spate of AI-created assets finding their way into games, he adds, “Honestly, what does it help with? Does it make the work more efficient? Does it improve the work?” Later he says, “In all my time as a narrative designer I’ve never once encountered a situation where editing an inferior product took less time than simply throwing it out and redoing it.”

The drudgery

But perhaps the stand-out point Gaider makes is how the past promises of an AI future have been entirely flipped on their head. We are the butlers to the robots, rather than the other way around. “It wouldn’t be so bad if generative AI was seen more as an assistant, doing the drudgery while leaving more important tasks for the worker, but we seem to be seeing more and more of the reverse: the AI is set to do the important work and the worker is around to ‘clean up’.”

The legendary writer also notes that even replacing the drudgery isn’t necessarily a good idea. “I also think we have to be very careful about not eliminating every task which is useful for training juniors. Howe are we going to train up the next generation of devs if we eliminate every entry-level task?”

Condemning genAI as “terrible at iteration,” Gaider questions how it can possible to bug fix so-called vibe coding. “What’s the point of creating prototypes with AI when the final result is that nobody on the team has actually learned anything about how to make the final product?”

GamesRadar saves his most savage comment for last.

Until some regulation is in place? Until we can be confident that it’s only trained on legally sourced data? Until the people making decisions regarding its use finally realize that it’s not the source of cheap labour replacement they want it to be, and don’t cut off their teams at the kneecaps to force it on them while expecting unrealistic results? It should be treated like the virulent plague it is.

It’s well worth reading Austin Wood’s full investigation into why developers are so against genAI, despite publishers and big tech trying their best to impose it upon them, where the site speaks to other important industry names like Dusk’s David Szymanski, Vlambeer legend Rami Ismail, and Marvel Rivals executive producer Danny Koo.