Billionaire video game industry veteran Gabe Newell, the founder of Valve, has shared his thoughts on the role that artificial intelligence could play in the future of technology.

Speaking to Zalkar Saliev (via PC Gamer) from his yacht, Newell said he thinks it’s “incredibly obvious” that machine learning and AI systems are going to “profoundly impact pretty much every single business.” He said we could be looking at a huge technology transition on par with the arrival of the computer and the internet.

“So if I had to point to a technology transition to get in front of, it’s to figure out how to use AI to do anything better. If you wanna be an accountant, learn AI, if you want to be an attorney, learn AI, if you’re gonna be a programmer, you know, make sure that you know how to use the tools that are comfortable with those programming concepts. That all seems super obvious,” he said.

Newell went on to say that people who reacted quickly when the internet came online years ago reaped the benefits of embracing the new technology, and something similar could happen with AI.

“On the internet there were the companies and individuals who saw the opportunity and took advantage of those opportunities to create more value either as an individual or as a corporation and they zoomed ahead of everybody else,” Newell said. “So essentially AI is going to be a cheat code for people who want to take advantage of it.”

That Newell is a big believer in AI is not a surprise. After all, he is a co-founder of Starfish, a neural network company similar to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, and Starfish uses AI systems to fuel its research.

AI has been a major player in the world of technology and video games for some time already, but its expansion seems to be accelerating in part through evolutions of the technology, including generative AI. Nvidia, which supplies some of the hardware used to propel AI advancements, is reaping the benefits of late, recently becoming the most valuable company in the world with more than $4 trillion in market cap.

Exactly how advancements to AI might impact jobs in gaming, and all sectors, remains to be seen, but some have expressed fear about job losses. In fact, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said job losses due to AI are coming, but overall hiring will increase due to the number of new jobs created.

In related news, the video game voice actor strike recently ended, with one of the major sticking points being protections against AI.

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