Take-Two CEO Doesn’t Think AI Will Reduce Employment or Development Costs; Says It’s “Stupidest Thing” He’s Heard

Like it or not, it seems AI (Artificial Intelligence) is making its way not only into our lives for better or for worse. One chief worry of most people is, AI will replace people to cut costs, and that translates to people losing jobs. Apparently that won’t be the case according to Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick.

Speaking at the TD Cowen conference with Senior Media Entertainment Analyst Doug Kreutz, Strauss explains why AI won’t result in unemployment, and why it won’t make game development budgets necessarily cheaper as well.

Q: If I think about the history of the video game industry, You know, 40 years or so of it being a mass market entertainment industry. There have been a lot of major technological advances. And in that 40 years, the price of making video games has only ever gone up. And that’s because it’s a very competitive industry.

And if you don’t make the best product, your competitor will, and you’ll lose. So, when you think about what AI can do, I mean, a lot of investors ask me, Is it going to reduce the cost of making video games? My answer is typically, No, I don’t think it will. It may reduce the cost of some aspects of making video game, but that money will get spent elsewhere to make the game better.

What it will probably do is expand what’s possible in video. So me having framed the answer, do you agree or disagree with what I’m saying?

Zelnick: I mostly agree, actually we’ve been in the AI business since, you know, the beginning of the business, of course. And we’ve seen numerous tools created for our business that yield efficiencies.

And despite that, of course, as you said, the cost of making games has gone up and it hasn’t gone up because there weren’t efficiencies created by those tools. Those efficiencies were created and that allowed us to turn our attention to more complex activities that continue to engage and delight consumers.

I’m pretty sure the same thing happens. So what happens is generative AI will allow us to do a bunch of things more efficiently. So we’ll turn our attention to other things and those other things will probably still be costly and time consuming.

The Take-Two boss continues on mentioning animation before used to be all hand drawn, and how today, it’s not and it’s created in computers, but it costs a lot more to make compared to a “Mickey Mouse” movie back in the 1920’s.

Zelnick: So, I think the same thing happens here. I think we just. We, you know, increase our expectations, I also don’t think for a minute that generative AI is going to like, reduce employment. That’s crazy. It’s actually crazy. You know, it’s not going to make, you know, people, people irrelevant. It’s going to change the nature of certain forms of employment.

Finishing up, Zelnick says that the thinking of AI is going to make people unemployed is the “stupidest thing” he’s ever heard, and how the history of productivity tools is that it even increases employment.

Zelnick: So believe it or not, like I’m in a (chat) What’sApp chat with a bunch of Silicon Valley CEOs and like the conventional wisdom out there is like AI is going to make us all unemployed. It is just the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. The history of productivity tools is that it increases employment.

It increases value, it increases yield, it enhances growth. All of these things will happen. Or said another way, remember the paperless office? Anyone remember the paperless office? Guess what? We consume more paper than ever before. Despite the fact that no one here has file cabinets, we consume more paper than ever before.

Zelnick uses farming (and farmers) as a comparison point. He mentions that 140 years ago in the mid 1870s, 65-70% of the US population made its living in agriculture. Compared to today where he claims it’s at 1-2%.

Zelnick: So the analogy I like to give, and I’ll try to make this interactive. So 150 years ago, mid, you know, 1870s, what percent of the U. S. population, uh, made its living in agriculture? 65 to 70 percent. What percent of the U. S. population is involved in agriculture today? Now, we feed all of America, and we feed a lot of the rest of the world. What percent?

Between one and two percent. Around one and a half percent.

When was the last time you ran into someone who said, “It’s horrible, I cannot get a job as a farmer. I mean, you just can’t believe it. I’ve been trying, and I’m unemployed, no farming job for me.” The answer is, we do not want to get our hands dirty farming, or most of us do not. By the way, farmers don’t get their hands dirty anymore, because it’s automated and we have massive farms.

So, the same thing will happen. You have a moment in time. Where certain people will be put out of work by AI. An example would be like routine call centers. Not high tech complex ones. But for those of you who shop online, a little box opens up and says, Hi, I’m Bob, how can I help you shop for a couch today?

You do know that Bob is AI, right? That Bob, you’re aware that Bob is not Bob, right? So, that’s, but the person who was Bob, who was three years ago, was sitting in a call center, In, in India, like they’re doing more interesting work now because these are competent people who are highly educated and better jobs came along that probably pay them more.

Time will tell if Zelnick’s ideology on AI is correct or not, though what he said about it not reducing development costs do seem spot-on. While I understand how AI makes some work easier and faster, there’s still no beating that human touch when it comes to creativity.

In related news, Strauss Zelnick also mentioned how Rockstar Games will make “more announcements in due time” when asked about Grand Theft Auto 6 on PC.

(Editor’s Note: Added the farming and call center references as Zelnick uses it as analogies).

Related Reading:

• Take-Two Interactive Boss “Not Seeing a Pushback” on $70 Pricing for Games
• Take-Two CEO: We’re So Focused on Delivering More Value Than We Charge
• Take-Two CEO: “Highly Confident” on GTA 6 Fall 2025 Release Window, Rockstar Seeking “Perfection”

[Source: WSW (sign up required)]

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