The Crazy Taxi franchise has been relegated to handhelds and mobile for many years, so its confirmed return during the Xbox Games Showcase yesterday was huge news. Before the excitement for the long-anticipated game could even settle in, gamers quickly found an AI disclaimer on the Crazy Taxi: World Tour Steam page, and the disappointment and anger settled in. Image via SEGA “At SEGA Corporation, we utilize generative AI as a support tool for developers, aiming to provide better content to our users and enable developers to focus more on creative tasks,” the Steam page says. “We have used such generative AI support tools during development of Crazy Taxi: World Tour. No AI was used in reference to the performers in the game.” Series creator Kenji Kanno was promptly asked about it during an event at Summer Game Fest, and according to Kotaku, gen-AI has only been used as a tool during development. “We used it as a reference,” Kanno said via translator. “So our artists would pull up [and] generate some of their ideas and then they would look at that, you know, generated image and then they would draw the actual thing. So actual creators, everything from programming to assets, everything is made by an actual human. It’s only used as a reference for them to look at and then they would actually create the actual thing that would go into the game.” This is becoming more and more commonplace in game development these days, and it doesn’t feel like it’s going away soon. Game devs promise up and down that AI is being used as a tool to speed up work and not replace people. That’s what they say, anyway. “For us, the extent of how we use generative AI is only what I mentioned earlier,” Kanno said. “[It’s] just for ideas and just as a reference. Moving forward in the future [generative AI] is probably going to be more of a hot topic, but I think that’s all I can say right now on how we use generative AI for this game.” I’ve never played the Crazy Taxi series more than a few times myself, but the concern around gen-AI is real, especially in Asian culture, where it’s seemingly way more accepted than it is here in the West. But even a Western franchise like Call of Duty has been using gen-AI in similar ways, so until there’s any real backlash, it’s likely here to stay.0The post Crazy Taxi creator explains use of ‘generative AI support tools’ in response to criticism appeared first on Destructoid.