Ultima creator Richard Garriott is no stranger to controversy. Although he's a foundational progenitor of early computer RPGs, his newer releases haven't had nearly the level of impact as his early work and his stances on stuff like NFTs and AI haven't all been particularly well-received.

In a recent appearance on the TechJesse podcast, Garriott wades into the shark-infested waters that is AI discourse in the games industry. The proliferation of AI data centers is one of the main factors driving up hardware prices, but the more existential threat is job displacement, a fear shared across many industries. Game studios big and small are increasingly using AI to streamline development, and in even more controversial cases generate actual assets and "vibe-code" entire projects, which of course means fewer human jobs. For people like Garriott trying to cut down on development costs, that's not such a bad thing.

"This is super controversial, so half your people listening here are going to hate me, [but] AI is really helping," says Garriott. "Now, I can be closer to the creation. Now, we need fewer people and less time to make it. And as much as, by the way, there are real issues with AI, like is it plagiarizing work from other places we think is real? And if we use it for voice, who those voices train on. And so, ethical use of AI is really an important issue, and I'm not trying to say I've solved that, but we're trying.

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