The Exchanges

Q What about, like, building, like, I guess these are elements of a game. Um, do you envision actually being able to prompt and play a game?

A I think this is really, um, insightful because elements ultimately add up to the full experience, and, and the full experience of a game, especially on Roblox, is, is really quite rich. We have three D objects, um, unbeknownst to a lot of people, the three D objects on Roblox actually tend to be physically pretty realistic. We run physics simulation, Cars have wheels. If wheels fall off cars, the cars skid out. Uh, we have three D terrain. We have a lot of code embedded in all of those objects. Uh, Roblox game creators embed code at the world level and the object level. And you're exactly right. The, the North star is not just object creation, but full on experience creation to where, um, one could imagine someone drawing a few sketches of characters, Describing a few fun type of gameplay and literally generating their own Roblox experience from that.

AI assessment note: “The, the North star is not just object creation, but full on experience creation”

Q Okay, we got some questions from our Discord, a lot of them about responsibility, starting with the AI responsibility question. We have a member that says, AI likely will soon be building its own worlds inside Roblox. Who actually takes responsibility if something goes wrong? Is it gonna be the user? Is it gonna be Roblox? Who's responsible if AI builds something bad?

A Well, I think what we're going to see, wonderful question, um, and I, I, I, you know, we are put in a position where we, we have an amazing amount of responsibility here of a wide range of ages. We're running in different countries with different regulations and policies, and where I see this going is we need to be handled, we need to be able to handle Whatever comes out of AI. And what that means is if one of our creators makes a really interesting three D experience and they're running in a fairly untethered mode, we'll give them the guidelines on the type of experience, the age range, but it's our job to be watching that still. And I think it's our job to be using AI To analyze the output of what their AI built to see, is it policy compliant? And so we take that responsibility. Uh, we take the responsibility of making sure you can predict and trust the policy adherence of what is on our platform.

AI assessment note: “And so we take that responsibility.”

Q Now they say that there's a potential that bots can inflate the numbers, and there are some games that users have said are, are botted out. So do you think there's a chance that bots might have been increasing those numbers?

A I would say, once again, we report daily active accounts on the platform. We are constantly, constantly patrolling for, we, we don't call them bots. We call them accelerated play or, you know, things that are doing weird thing. And the situation you're talking about, which no one on the platform wants, is some experiences, um, There could be an incentive to put in, um, account farming type activity and resell that kind of thing. We're constantly getting better at that. We are constantly working on that. Um, the numbers are not, are really not significant. And, and once again, if for, um, there's some interesting thing. If we, if we imagined three quarters of the accounts on Roblox or bots, Interesting. That would mean a quarter of those accounts are really making a lot of money per hour because the one thing that always pencils out is raw cash in our bank account that is audited. Um, we go through that with the auditors. We can measure it and there's no way to bought raw cash. So yeah, we, we disavow the significance of bots in Really distorting our numbers.

AI assessment note: “we disavow the significance of bots in Really distorting our numbers.”

Q Okay. Um, and you're training on actual gameplay to be able to create more gameplay or not yet?

A So you're, um, this is very perceptive because we have both static information, which would be three D objects and shapes. We have something more than static information, which is the code embedded in those objects. So cars on Roblox, uh, we call them four D cars, not three D because they have code. Like how, how do you, when do you open the, How does the user interface work on that? What are the properties of the wheels and the motors on that car? So we have that data to train on as well. How does a car actually function as opposed to how does it look good? Then the future though, once again, in a privacy compliant and IP compliant way is we also will know more and more how people interact with objects. Um, What's a typical way for you or I to walk through a building? How do people interact in a sword fight when they're pretending they're knights? How do people climb on cars? So that time-based information complements the static information and starts to beckon more interactive type experiences. And I would say, when I say proprietary, proprietary plus, of course, the huge open source ecosystem that's out there for tools, open source complementary things, but all of the three D stuff very heavily proprietary.

AI assessment note: “Then the future though... is we also will know more and more how people interact”

Q a game that has stood the test of time over the years. And what Demis was saying is like, I, I am trying to build AI that can actually go ahead and build a game as brilliant and as elegant as those that designed Go eons ago. So let me put that to you. I want to, want to ask you, uh, do you think AI can, can do this?

A I think there's about five really interesting threads right now. I think we're still in the early forms of AI where arguably AI is super good at word manipulation. Um, and it's learning shape rotation and shape manipulation and, and more spatial type things and engineering things. So I think we're early there. 10,000 years from today. Will AI be able to generate games and experiences that are maybe indistinguishable from humans? I could see that. Um, what's interesting, though, is thinking through what does that really mean for us culturally in a society between here and that next 10,000 years, because there, there is a notion that we, um, there's an optimistic notion that we still like things built by humans in a way as well, and we sometimes like to buy that designer thing rather than that You know, mechanical things. So, um, I don't know how we go from here over the next 10,000 years. I do think ultimately AI is going to get pretty smart.

AI assessment note: “Will AI be able to generate games and experiences... I could see that.”

Q my friends are like, what do I do here? Do I give my daughter money to spend on the internet and, you know, buy a dress on Roblox? Or do I like not give them that money or give them a physical dollar and not allow them to spend it online? So I'm very curious to put it that question to you, CEO of Roblox. What would your response be?

A Well, first off, I remember when I was in kindergarten, and I got, uh, 10 or 15 cents to go buy a comic book, and that was my allowance, and every week I took that 15 cents, and I walked down to the store and bought a comic book and built some financial literacy, so that would be point number one. Point number two, the vast majority of people on Roblox are not using any money, and part of the Reason we've, we've grown is we've always viewed the platform as a free utility that brings people together with optimism and civility no matter where they are in the world and supports them. And we, we behind the scenes, um, when we're discussing things like search and discovery and what are our algorithms and all of that stuff that's a lot in the news, behind the scenes we are generally optimizing User joy, user retention, um, connection, rather than money. And I think that's, that, that's actually contributed to our growth is we've put that first and foremost. That said, yes, we do, we build the company on the small percentage of people on our platform who use virtual currency, and that's going to be supplemented with other forms of monetization. Um, and we're, we're very appreciative of that, because it allows us to build this platform and, and keep moving. Um, when it comes to kids, I do feel it's a hundred percent a parental choice. I would, I would never recommend to a parent, oh, y…

AI assessment note: “I do feel it's a hundred percent a parental choice.”