On day two, Corvalis Cohen gave a presentation on AI Integrations with Unity and Virtual Production at the GameDevGuild Conference. “It was exactly the kind of thing that I was waiting for.” Jason Weimann, co-founder and host of the GameDevGuild conference, said. Photo by Joseph Sanker.
By Joseph Sanker Staff Reporter
Corvalis Cohen, a sophomore and computer science major at California State University, Dominguez Hills, spoke on AI integrations at the GameDevGuild Conference, a five-day conference centered around videogame development for anyone interested in finding a career within the industry.
“Nothing can beat the billions of dollars of infrastructure, support and dedicated engineers used to support these AIs,” Cohen said during his presentation on May 2.
Attendees of the online conference created their own avatars and moved around a virtual expo hall. From there, they could enter a computer-generated version of what would be an in-person conference, a similar format to a two-dimensional Pokémon video game.
“It feels low-stakes in a sense that I can get up, go to take a drink, use the restroom, in my home,” Cohen said. “Walking up to people far more experienced or having a conversation is easy. It’s just a very nice environment.”
Cohen’s presentation focused on combining artificial intelligence with video game creation and virtual production. Everyone in attendance, from beginners in the AI environment to the GameDevGuild staff was able to learn something new from his discussion.
“I didn’t expect that much information in that short of a time. It was exactly the kind of thing that I was waiting for,” Jason Weimann, co-founder and host of the GameDevGuild Conference, said. “I’m really excited to rewatch this talk and I’m going to go back through it again at the end of the week…so I can start pulling some of this stuff in.”
Those in attendance shared similar sentiments on Cohen’s talk as well.
“So far, I am totally blown away [by] all this information, which is awesome,” Joe Dispenza, a GameDevGuild attendee, said.
After his talk, Cohen answered questions from the virtual audience.
“It fascinated me that so many people were obviously following along and had very specific questions about how to integrate AI in their game,” Cohen said. “Those (questions) really got to the heart of (the talk) and I got to talk more about my broader feelings of the technology and its pace in the field so those questions were really interesting and really fun to grapple with.”
The Q&A was followed by a lunch break where attendees discussed how AI could potentially affect other industries. These conversations were originally inspired by Cohen’s interest in being a professional voice actor.
“(Another attendee) had mentioned earlier that…AI could potentially destroy that field due to things like (text-to-speech) and AI voices,” Cohen said. “Right now, AI voices are far more like an assistant tool to things like producers and production managers, rather than a replacement for voice actors or actresses.”
The future of AI has endless possibilities. Conferences like that of the GameDevGuild can be utilized to arm oneself with knowledge of what can happen.
Cohen recommends more people get involved in AI technology building, instead of running away from it. “By participating, you can help ensure that these technologies are used in constructive and assistant ways as tools…for everyone rather than just in the select hands of the few where it could be abused, misused and harm industries and people rather than used as a nice assistant or accelerant to their capabilities,” he added.
