Ashly Burch on AI: "A lot of people think AI will just solve all our problems"

Ever since it burst onto the scene, artificial intelligence has been a technology and a buzzword with a lot of negative connotations in the entertainment and creative sectors. We're seeing publishers, production giants, and parent companies looking to explore the tech further as a way to reduce expenses at the cost of human influence. It has reached a point where SAG-AFTRA held a strike (and for the video game world, is still striking) to protect its members from AI and other encroaching issues, and some influential members of the industry are even speaking up about the technology's usage.

One such person is Ashly Burch, known for playing Aloy in Guerrilla Games' Horizon series and also for being a star and a recent director on Apple TV+'s Mythic Quest show, who recently published a TikTok addressing a Sony showcased tech demo that created a "living" version of Aloy without Burch's involvement.

Following up to that, our very own David Caballero had a chance to speak with Burch for an interview about Mythic Quest and its spinoff Side Quest, where the conversation naturally evolved into a discussion about AI.

"Mythic Quest has been interesting in that I feel like it's been strangely prophetic in different instances," said Burch. "I remember in Season 1, we have a whole storyline where someone hacks a non-player character and starts using them. And I think a story like that came out after we started working on the show. We were like, what the heck?

"Yeah, I mean, Mythic Quest is interesting in that it is, you know, it is a workplace comedy, but it's about games. So, we get to touch on these, some of these like hot button issues that are happening in games and do it in a funny way, and I think that episode is sort of a great representation, I think, of how a lot of people think about AI, which is like, it'll just solve all our problems. We'll be fine. We'll just have AI do it and it'll be fixed and it'll be fine. And it does in a comedic way through our characters show the limitations of AI.

"So yeah, Mythic Quest has always been great for that in that it uses gaming as a backdrop to tell character stories, but also to generate comedy, which has been great. And so, yeah, it's a great benefit in that way. But it is interesting... I mean, AI is a thing that is affecting, you know, the previous strikes for writers and on-camera actors were in large part about AI. The current SAG-AFTRA strike against video games is about AI. So, it is a thing that's, I think, top of mind for a lot of people. I have friends that are in education that their bosses are like, 'let's start using AI.'"

Burch then provided a short anecdote about other AI uses in the world.

"It's everywhere. Actually, a writer's assistant for Mythic Quest posted on Instagram recently, Randall, that he was going through the Taco Bell drive-thru and there was like a QR code that was like, we're gonna use your voice to train AI. So, it's everywhere. It is definitely something that I think is on a lot of people's minds. So I'm happy that we were able to talk about it a little bit in Mythic Quest."

You can see the full interview with Burch and Mythic Quest creators Katie McElhenney and John Howell below, to hear about Ubisoft's influence and impact in its creation and also the spinoff Side Quest.