OG Halo artist warns developers not to rely on AI for creative direction

Eddie Smith, a former Bungie artist who worked on the original Halo trilogy, says he saw AI's limitations firsthand while on the Las Vegas Sphere production of The Wizard of Oz. To wrap the original 4:3 film around the venue's 16K spherical screen the team used generative AI to fill gaps, but quickly found the process more cumbersome than it was worth.

"When they started it, of course, they thought the AI would do a lot of it," Smith says. "And they realized, no, the AI is really, it just does what you teach it to do. I look at AI almost like a toddler, an extremely advanced toddler, who's just learned how to talk and obey standard instructions.

But they're still a really small child and they constantly have to be reinforced and read." Smith says human-made art ended up in every frame after extensive manual touch-ups were required — the same work that would have been needed if humans had created the art from the start.

eddie smith, bungie, halo, las vegas, 16k, spherical screen, generative ai, ai limitations, manual touchups, creative direction