Facepunch Studios prepares to launch s&box in April 2026, but before the game-creation platform arrives, founder Garry Newman is raising a sobering question about technology the industry is already embracing: has the rush to adopt AI for coding blinded us to a real problem?
Newman sees AI as a useful tool but warns of its potential to weaken critical thinking skills if overused. The creator of the landmark Garry's Mod isn't arguing against AI itself. "I don't mind AI that much," he said in an interview with PC Gamer. "It makes my job so much easier, but I know a lot of artists are more sensitive over AI. I think programmers are over it now. They've seen how useful it is, how much more efficient it makes them." That acceptance, though, comes with a caveat.
Newman's analogy is direct and memorable. "I think you need to kind of split it, 50/50," he explained. "You need to use your imagination sometimes, to be able to do that. And I think it's the same with coding. If you count on AI to always do it, then you're going to lose the ability to think critically." The logic is straightforward: when you hand off every decision to an automated system, the muscle you use to solve novel problems atrophies. Research from the MIT Media Lab has pointed to the possibility of "cognitive atrophy" from over-reliance on such technologies, referring to the weakening or decline of mental processes like memory, problem-solving, and critical thinking. The concept is similar to how a muscle weakens from disuse.
The divide in the industry's response to AI remains stark. While developers may leverage AI for code generation and debugging, artists often express concern over tools trained on existing works without consent. For programmers, the equation seems settled: speed and efficiency trump other concerns. For artists, the legitimacy of the training data itself remains contested ground. Newman noted he has learned more from AI than he has delegated to it, acknowledging that the technology evolves too quickly to ignore. "It's useful, it's fast," he said. "But for art, it's kind of a hot topic. Our artists... it's a really hot topic for them."
As for s&box itself, the platform will inevitably host AI-generated content once it reaches a wider audience. Newman believes that low-quality, AI-generated content in games will ultimately be ignored by players, with the ecosystem naturally filtering out poor-quality creations. It is a hands-off approach grounded in faith that communities self-regulate; bad work simply loses attention, and the slop sinks.
What remains unresolved is whether the industry will heed Newman's warning about the trade-offs built into convenience. AI coding tools are here to stay, and few would argue for their removal. The real question is whether developers will use them as a crutch or a collaborator, and whether they'll maintain the hard-won discipline of thinking through problems themselves.