Roblox CEO Envisions ‘Westworld’ Future of Generative AI in the Metaverse
Roblox CEO David Baszucki sees generative AI as the path toward making the gaming platform’s future look like the science fiction movie and TV show Westworld. During Roblox’s latest earnings call, Baszucki laid out how AI might help Roblox developers build experiences and items.
Roblox World
Westworld is set in an amusement park with robots indistinguishable in form and behavior from human beings. The story, both for the movie and the show, is about how people become monsters in their treatment of others when there are no consequences, and eventually the robots rebel when they achieve sentience. Baszucki is more interested in how the technology might be deployed, minus the murders.
“Ultimately, we’ll enter an age on Roblox where anyone can make their avatar or clothing 100% through text prompts. So if I or you wanted to build a piece of clothing, we could describe it. We’re gonna see that created in real time,” Baszucki said. “We think for developers, this is going to accelerate quality up and down the stack. There’s a great video clip, we’re not going to claim when we will achieve this, on Westworld, where there’s a text-based interaction of 3D creation. And we do think that’s the product vision, where developers will have all tools at their disposal.”
Roblox has previously showcased several generative AI tools for game developers. For instance, Code Assist automates basic coding tasks, turning concepts into code to embed within Roblox. There’s also the Material Generator tool, which creates art assets that can be layered on two-dimensional surfaces. The game engine can then reference those factors to make sure the object looks and behaves appropriately. These are part of Roblox’s generative AI strategy to streamline object design and deployment in its digital universe.
Roblox is working to step beyond the current tools and looking to set up AI-assisted experiences built by those with no technical training. He also speculated AI could produce experiences dynamically tailored to individual players, though that would be further in the future. The company is betting that generative AI models will help empower its community to produce engaging, personalized experiences faster and easier. This aligns with Roblox’s mission to foster a new category of “human co-experience.” For now, Roblox is focused on more measured progress in leveraging AI to enhance accessible user-generated content.
“We’ll see a greater diversity of experiences. We will see people who before didn’t expect to be creators making immersive 3D experiences,” Baszucki said. “We may ultimately even see experiences that are dynamically personalized for each individual player. So it’s really early, but we think it’s a really exciting frontier for 3D creation.”
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