Did Xbox really just advertise jobs in graphics with this terrible AI art?

It seems recent history is repeating. In November, Netflix was roasted when an exec posted an AI-generated image to announce the launch of AI game development two weeks after the company closed its AAA studio Team Blue. You might think that would have taught industry players to be aware of the optics at least, but Microsoft's XBox is now facing a similar flak.

Two weeks ago, Xbox communicated thousands of layoffs, cancelling games like Everwild and Perfect Dark in the process. The finger was inevitably pointed at AI. Now Xbox's graphics development lead has announced that his department is hiring – with what appears to be a bad AI-generated image as if to prove that it urgently needs the staff (see our pick of the best game development software if you prefer to work on your own game).

It seems nobody at Xbox graphics realised that the image on the job ad shows a computer monitor with a display that's the wrong way around, but what's really shocking is the lack of awareness of how bad such a lazy use of AI looks amid industry layoffs and concerns about AI replacing jobs.

Comments on LinkedIn don't tend to descend into public roastings like they do on other social media platforms, but this proved to be an exception.

"Trying to imagine what it must be like for thousands of Xbox staff getting laid off, and watching the head of graphics posting AI slop to advertise new vacancies," one person responded to the post.

"Xbox is dead," another person wrote. "The people at the top [are] creatively and morally bankrupt. Not to mention detached from reality."

Some people went further: "You guys are driving this industry into a death spiral and destroying as many lives as you can in the process. This isn't technological progress, this is speedrunning circling the drain."

Others feel that the ad is hardly going to inspire confidence in new recruits. "Why would anyone take a job listing using AI for a position in your art department? That screams to me you'll just replace me in a year or so."

To clarify, we don't have confirmation that the job losses at Xbox are directly connected with AI. But with the industry at a difficult juncture right now and AI a major concern for anyone getting started in game design, the big players might need to do some soul searching – or at least tread more carefully with their communications.