Dragon Age co-creator David Gaider calls generative AI a 'virulent plague'

David Gaider, co-creator of Dragon Age and lead writer on Origins, Dragon Age II, and Inquisition, has come out swinging against generative AI in a new extended interview with GamesRadar. His comments came as part of the site's broader investigation into why so many developers are vocally opposed to the technology.

Gaider's critique hits on several fronts. He argues that genAI is fundamentally built on plagiarism — trained on data without the consent of the creators who produced it — and dismisses the industry defense that AI needs stolen data to function as "not a very compelling argument." He also questions the basic efficiency case for the tech: "In all my time as a narrative designer I've never once encountered a situation where editing an inferior product took less time than simply throwing it out and redoing it." One of his sharpest points targets the inversion of the original AI promise — instead of machines handling drudge work while humans focus on creative decisions, he says studios are increasingly using AI for the important work and keeping humans around just to clean up the mess. He also raises a generational concern: if AI eliminates entry-level tasks, there's no pipeline to train the next generation of developers. On so-called vibe coding, he's blunt — if nobody on the team actually learned how to build the thing, prototyping with AI is pointless.

Gaider spent over 17 years at BioWare and was a senior designer on Baldur's Gate II and Knights of the Old Republic before leading the writing on the Dragon Age series. He left BioWare in 2016 and has since worked at Beamdog and Summerfall Studios. His voice carries weight in RPG development circles, and his comments land in the middle of an industry-wide argument: publishers and executives are increasingly pushing AI adoption while developers — writers, artists, and designers especially — are pushing back hard, citing both ethical concerns around training data and practical concerns about output quality.

Gaider's closing statement is the most unambiguous: until regulation exists, until training data is legally sourced, and until executives stop expecting AI to replace skilled labor on the cheap, he says it "should be treated like the virulent plague it is." GamesRadar's full investigation, written by Austin Wood, is worth reading alongside his extended comments for a wider picture of where the development community stands.