Square Enix AI Researcher and Creator Kazutoshi Iida Discuss Generative AI at BitSummit
The conversation frames generative AI not as a rupture but as a continuation of 50 years of procedural generation in games, directly addressing creator anxiety with a concrete analogy.
Reporting from 1 sources: 4Gamer.net.
At BitSummit PUNCH in May 2026, Kazutoshi Iida and Square Enix AI researcher Yoichiro Miyake discussed generative AI in games. Miyake argued that game development has always been generative, from procedural dungeons to deep learning, and that AI tools do not replace skilled creators, comparing the anxiety to early fears about automatic translation.
Yoichiro Miyake, a lead AI researcher at Square Enix and a doctor of engineering, told the BitSummit audience that the game industry has been generating content for 50 years. He pointed to 1970s and 1980s titles like Rogue as early examples of procedural generation, arguing that the shift from hand-coded rules to deep learning is a change of method, not of kind. Kazutoshi Iida, a creator and professor at Ritsumeikan University, raised the anxiety he hears from modeling students about AI making their skills obsolete. Miyake responded by comparing the situation to automatic translation: the tool does not replace the linguist. The two have known each other since a 2008 lecture by Will Wright on Spore.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.