Roblox CEO: We Want AI To Generate Full Games

Channel: Alex Kantrowitz

Published at: 2025-03-12

YouTube video id: LAegsjvJQNU

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LAegsjvJQNU

Roblox CEO Dave bazooki joins us to talk
about creating games with generative AI
safety on the platform and whether you
should give your kids money to play with
on Roblox that's coming up right after
this welcome to Big technology podcast a
show for cool-headed nuon conversation
of the tech world and Beyond we're
joined today by Roblox CEO Dave bazooki
he is the CEO of a very large app with
855 million daily active users across
190 countries they're not all
uh they're not all children 60% are over
13 years old so we'll talk about the
appeal of the platform the safety
measures the company is putting into
place to keep Kids Safe uh and whether
or not it's a smart idea to give kids
money when they're on cuz I know my
friends uh their kids they're asking for
money for Roblox and I want to speak
with Dave about whether they should give
uh the kids that money so uh mostly
excited to speak about the AI stuff
we're going to go into depth about
creating games with AI in the first half
and it's my pleasure to welcome Dave to
the show Dave great to see you welcome
to the show thank you so much I'm really
excited to be here and these are fun
topics so thanks for having me
definitely I am a user of Roblox I can't
say I'm an active user but I do know
that when I'm around my uh younger
cousins or uh my friends kids I fire the
app up and uh they show me how to play
the games and it's really it's usually a
pretty good time uh well hey welcome
fellow Roblox user I've been a Roblox
user for 18 years going on 20 okay great
and so the question is what are games
going to look like in the future because
to this point you have a platform where
people can build games and then you
could go out and play the games yourself
um and a lot of that is pretty
painstaking taking certain features and
moving them in certain directions to
enable certain actions and you could
spend a lot of time
building games building games takes a
lot of time then this thing called
generative AI happens and all of a
sudden the idea to build uh becomes
different where maybe some people say
you could just prompt the game and it
will show up now I I don't think Roblox
is there yet but I do know that it's on
the road map so talk a little bit about
how you envision generative AI coming
into your creation process and where
things stand
today you know it's pretty interesting
thing if we go back 20 or 30 years and
so many of the things um maybe we would
imagine 20 or 30 or 40 years ago and
we'd read them in sci-fi books some of
them have started to come true the you
know the Dick Tracy watch has started to
come true and what we would think of as
the web has started to come true and
when we started the company 20 years ago
we had the notion of this um 3D digital
platform in the cloud and if we gave
people this 3D platform form we would
see interesting stuff to zero in on your
question I think the fun answer is we
don't even know and I feel that the
reason we don't even know is there's a
nuanced angle to AI which accelerates
all of us as humans whether we're an
artist or a 3D designer or just someone
with an idea um we accelerate that it it
helps us be a better Creator arguably
just like Photoshop helped people who
used to paint with oil be better
creators so we're going to see a lot of
human accelerator but there's a second
Nuance which is what is a game and as we
start to have in addition to AI
creation within the games themselves and
within
experiences the ability for all of us to
access AI at any point in any time it
creates almost a new opportunity where
we don't know what a game is and and
where I'm going with this is in addition
to AI creation pretty soon we're going
to have 3D generation and text
generation available within any Roblox
game and so what that what that means is
for example a fashion experience like
dress to impress where we typically put
things on and shop and put an outfit
together will be someday complemented
with you or I describing what kind of
outfit we would like to create and so
it's interesting to imagine that AI May
accelerate creation not just for game
creators but for every player of games
right so if you want to customize your
experience maybe you can prompt your way
into a character that looks exactly like
you want it to look like and people who
watch Project Runway and say I have
those ideas in my head I just don't know
how to sew them I don't know how to cut
the fabric when they start describing
those ideas with text or voice prompt
they may start to see those ideas come
to fruition that's just a really small
vertical slice of why we think there
there's an emergent new world of what is
a game as AI starts to power some of
these experiences how far is Roblox from
a place where you could say you know
imagine a world where you know the
characters are dragons and I'm trying to
do this
and these are the objectives and it
should be elegant uh but you know easy
for users to play and then it just
creates the game in you know in and of
itself we're getting closer at
remarkably high speed and one of the
accelerance of this and this is true for
any AI system is the more data that's
available for training in a legal
copyright to compliant way the more
quickly we can build up AI power power
and Roblox is unique that we have an
enormous amount of 3D data 3D objects 3D
scenes me there's hundreds and hundreds
of medieval castles there's thousands of
cars there's thousands of dragons and
all of this we're using that data to
create um not an llm but a 3D
foundational model within our AI team
and we're we we've said publicly we're
going to release the first version of it
this quarter and we're going to release
it in several forms we're going to
release it as a open- source 3D
foundational model um for some PE you
know for others to use we're going to
release it in Roblox studio so you you
will be able to say make me a good
Dragon um but we're also going to
release it for creators to use within
their games so we will be testing the
very first version of you and I in a
Roblox experience Ian saying you make
your dragon and I make my lion and we we
start to see them emerge uh obviously
it's version one um but this is going to
happen this quarter what about like
building like I guess so these are
elements of a game um do you envision
actually being able to prompt and play a
game 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 3D objects um uh unbeknown to a lot
of people the 3D 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 3D 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 gaml and
literally generating their own Roblox
experience from that can I tell you a
crazy thing that I did uh I was I mean
crazy who knows you'll be the judge uh I
was on Claude earlier today I guess I
was thinking about this interview and I
said can you create me like a a game
where a journalist hunts for scoops and
they have to ask the characters uh for a
scoop three times and then at the third
time they will give you a scoop and you
get a point for each scoop and it
actually builds the game it codes up the
game and uh it starts out as like it's
just like um a text game so like you
click on the character and then you you
know ask three times and then eventually
like like you might get the um you might
get the experience built out then I I
prompted it again and I said actually I
want this to be uh a Town Square that
you walk around where characters walk
around so it creates it and it has like
depersonalized emojis like the uh lawyer
is like a law icon I said no I actually
want these to look look like people and
then it goes ahead and recodes it and
now it then it works literally took me
10 minutes I coded it up and even gave
it a name it was called scoop Hunter
which I didn't even prompt it with next
thing I know I'm going out and playing
it now I know that's much more basic
than um than a Roblox game but like it
does make you
see the path to be able to get there so
I'm curious what you think about that
and how far away you think we might be
from being able to do that within
Roblox I don't think we're too far away
and I think what you're doing it's fun
to imagine the prompts you gave Cloud to
trying those same prompts in a full
immersive 3D environment ultimately over
time and I I feel where you're going
with that is exactly right I like the
notion of your gam scoop Hunter I like
the idea of the um the the full physical
fabric of that system is a high
resolution 3D environment a 3D
environment that can run on any device a
3D environment that can be multiplayer
around the world and that that fabric
then can support that that query we're
going to need some uh NPCs powered by AI
we we might need different
personalities that think about their
Scoops we might need a great Town Square
that you would stylize more as you
discussed it and that'll all come to
life so I think we're not that far away
from
that and so not that next year I won't
say when but I will say we're we're GNA
ship in q1 both text generation as well
as 3D um object generation in Roblox
experiences and we would philosophically
agree with you that full experience
generation is the highest way to think
about that a a full experience that's
immersive is 3D objects its prompts it's
code it's a it's pulling all of that
together I think where this ultimately
leads to um as computers get faster and
have more and more performance is almost
um where you're going with that is
happening in real time as you're walking
around a 3D environment and the ultimate
um when we think about how you and I
might dream when we're in a dream we're
literally generating a 3D environment in
real time that's changing very quickly
as we move around that dream and so in a
way what you're describing about if it's
done in real time and your you're
walking around scoop Hunter and you say
whoa morph into this I want sci-fi scoop
Hunter with a you know the Supreme
Council of 10,000 scoopers and it morphs
into that you could imagine all of that
happening in real time so you're saying
you want the players also to be able to
prompt as they're there to change the
game experience I I think the the more
we think of a game
experience as available to the player
not just the traditional game creator
the more robust the technology is and
and we you know at Roblox Roblox studi
is a very powerful tool all of the
facilities in Roblox Studio we want
available to the game creator AI
creation interactive modeling 3D things
so there's really kind of a blurry
between the studio tool and the Creator
and what you're talking about could be
done by the user in real time so just to
confirm this is your Northstar you're
interested
in in well let's just say goal this is
your goal you're interested in creating
a a experience where I could prompt an
experience out of thin air like I did
with scoop Hunter and then as I'm
playing a game or I'm in an experience I
as the user can prompt my way through it
to make it sort of shaped to the way
that I want to experience the experience
yeah and I would say it's bigger than a
goal I think there's a class of
Technology problem s that don't
involve things like faster than light
travel or hacking human biology that we
can imagine with more compute and better
algorithms are naturally going to emerge
this is one of those that I believe is
just naturally going to emerge it gives
us the opportunity not just to set that
as an interesting goal for those who
want that type of environment but also
something that will naturally emerge I'm
not sure everyone
247 will be running around Roblox
dynamically creating environments all
the time because many of us will be
hanging out with our friends going to a
concert many of us will like to go to
the creations of other people many of us
will still like to play hide and go seek
but for those who want to use that type
of experience or creation I do think
it'll become available yeah because
that's that is the thing about this
right when you play a game um the thing
about it that makes it so enjoyable is
the Taste and the talent of the game
creator that's correct like we like to
play Assassin's Creed in this house and
part of the joy of Assassin's Creed is
just the Brilliance of uh the Ubisoft
creators who have gone out and built
that game you could you experience it in
the quests you experience it everywhere
now when it comes to prompting a game um
it's almost like you could have a quote
unquote Normie try to prompt a game but
I'm not I'm not as as bullish that
they'll be able to do what the greats
can do and and replicate what makes
playing a game so magical it it reminds
me a little of when I was younger I got
a Mac plus and the Mac just came out and
the Mac had wizzywig windows and
fonts and all of a everyone thought they
could do text layout and
typography and we saw all these
documents with 39 different fonts that
look like crap um and I think there's a
little bit of an analogy to that where
font craftsmanship and layout used to be
done with movable type it moved online
to photoshop and other tools but still
there's crafts people who are really
good at layout and I think think the
same is true as we move from oil
painting to digital tools and
photography I think the same will stay
for that Assassin's Creed um game you
mentioned like there will be a lot of
taste and a lot of art even with the AI
acceleration do you think that AI can
replicate that human taste and
Brilliance that it takes to create a
great game like I was speaking with de I
want I want let me put the context here
I was speaking with de aabis who had his
uh AI game player go and beat go Alpha
go beat Lisa dull the Grand Master there
and I was talking to him about like
where do you want AI to go and he says I
want to be able to not just play go but
to prompt go and go is obviously 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 I 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 and a society
between here in that next 10,000 years
because there there is a notion that we
um there's an 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 thing 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 yeah I would be at this point I
would say I'd be surprised if the AI can
prompt a brilliant game uh like an
Assassin's Creed uh on in the long term
I imagine it will so let me let me ask
you a question about how you're doing
this you're you're building a a a 3D uh
foundational model um everything we hear
about building foundational models is
it's exceptionally expensive takes the
best AI talent to really do it well um
and it's only available to a few
companies now Roblox is not a small
company the day we speaking the market
cap is north of $37
billion um but I want to know how you're
able to do it with the resources that
you have um whe whether you're yeah
basically whether you're able to build
what you want to build and how tough
this has
been uh it's super
tough we I was in a meeting yesterday I
I I join our AI group um very often to
check in on I would say not just our 3D
foundational model but our text gen and
ultimately our experience generational
model and we should also talk about
ultimately NPC models as well because
that's the kind of the Sci-Fi complement
to 3D experience generation is uh Avatar
generation as well uh we have a really
large AI team and the the beauty of uh
it's pretty big it's like um because
think if if you look at our history
we've we've made some Acquisitions with
loom Ai and some brilliant Talent there
we've been constantly hiring and we've
been building models for four years now
primarily for text and voice safety for
uh asset and moderation and we've gotten
really good at building and running AI
at ROBLOX behind the scenes there's over
200 different models running on our
system that are doing so many things at
higher quality and higher performance we
we have also gotten very good at running
relatively complex models efficient and
and I uh you know deep seeks in the news
that that's kind of you know rings the
bell for us because our voice model um
runs very efficiently we're able to use
it to um help moderate all the voice on
our platform and we've we've even open-
sourced um one of our voice models so
other people can use this model for
safety and civility so bridging that
into 3D generation um where I have a lot
of experience with that um we also have
an amazing amount of data and a a very
um big data set that I mentioned is is
usable for training object 3D object uh
generation and started put that together
so um we're training we have enough
Hardware we have a great team and we're
going to run this efficiently so that
any Creator can use it in their in their
game um so we think we're unque L poised
to generate this 3D foundational model
and expand on that and it's all
proprietary all proprietary okay um and
you're training on actual gameplay to be
able to create more gameplay or not yet
so you're um this is very perceptive
because we have both static information
which would be 3D objects and shapes we
have something more than static in
which is the code embedded in those
objects so cars on Roblox uh we call
them 4D cars not 3D because they have
code like how how do when do you open
the door 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 the the
future that so 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 um interact in
a sword fight when they're pretending
they're Knights how do people climb on
cars so that uh time-based information
complements the static information and
starts to Beck in more interactive type
experiences and and I I I would say when
I say
proprietary proprietary plus of course
the huge open source ecosystem that's
out there for tools open source
complimentary things but all of the 3D
stuff very heavily
proprietary okay so what I'm hearing is
you're training on the objects some of
the interactions but not actual gamep
play to be used to generate more
gameplay not yet um I would say not yet
and I would say
um training on game play isn't
necessarily something we would use to
create game play uh but training on
gameplay may allow when you or I you
pick your favorite historical figure
whether it's you know uh George
Washington or you know the founder of
any
country um that data may allow us to
make more natural Avatar simulations as
well it may allow a um your your um
scoopers to act more natural you know
like if we know what how how those
various character archetypes work when
they've got a scoop and they want to
share it with you so I think we'll we'll
see that ultimately Drive Avatar
simulation as well okay and now David I
want to ask you um you're probably
better positioned than most to answer
this question which is we've been asking
when can you prompt uh
a a blueprint for instance when can you
prompt a design of a piece of furniture
the systems hallucinate too much right
now to actually be able to do that in a
useful way at least those that I've seen
maybe someone's built one uh having
built this or work being someone that's
working on one of these foundational
models uh for 3D you're somebody that
understands the spatial dynamics of
something how things interact with each
other in the real world um do you think
that this type of Technology can then be
applied to be able to successfully uh be
able to prompt a blueprint p uh prompt
Furniture Design prompt some sort of uh
Town layout whatever whatever
permutation of this you might
imagine this is really interesting
because there
are there's probably um hundreds of
thousands of town layouts on Roblox and
there are
probably um as we start to use the data
of human motion through those Town
layouts there's I'm sure a lot of
embedded information what layouts work
what layouts promote better social
cohesion what town layouts aren't very
good and the combination of the those
existing Town layouts plus how people
interact with them does beckon a future
of um really the interesting thought of
get useful typee of layouts from what's
traditionally thought of as a game
engine that could actually be used for
real life purposes uh I I'll give you
one example I just saw a few days ago we
asked our 3D foundational model to
generate an over- the road 18-wheel
semitrailer and we started constraining
it a bit we started saying make it fit
in this size and these models are
getting smart enough that in a smaller
size will generate the the cab of the
trailer without the trailer and in a
larger box we say oh now you have enough
space to generate the trailer so I I
like the idea of a Creator on Roblox
who's thinking of it as a game using our
AI to build a fun game called build my
own house um have some AI help power it
and have it be a mix of human intuition
and AI to build to make the house really
functional and uh over in AutoCAD land
or repet land or these beautiful 3D
architectural
programs imagining those being driven by
AI physics and
Aesthetics I think we you know we're all
going to be designing our own homes
absolutely okay we got some questions
from our Discord uh a lot of them about
responsibility uh starting with the AI
responsibility question uh we have a
member that says AI likely will soon be
building its own worlds inside Roblox um
who actually takes responsibility if
something goes wrong is it going to be
the user is it going to be Roblox who's
responsible if AI builds something bad
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 year 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 hand 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 3D experience
and they're running in a fairly
untethered mode will 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 I bu 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
of what is on our platform okay so it
will be roblox's responsibility not the
Creator that promps we it is still the
Creator's responsibility like we have
terms of service do not build this we do
not tolerate this we have zero tolerance
for a wide range of things including
bullying hate you name it but if someone
does if someone breaks that policy we're
going to catch it and we're going to
handle it and so it's really both okay
so no new precedent on digital liability
if someone uses your prompting tool no I
don't think so but if the prompting tool
hallucinates some weird
uh humans can already hallucinate
weird
yeah but anyway when you use a
prompting tool you give up some control
but I I hear what you're saying we can
and we do all right let's take a break
and we're going to come back and we're
going to talk a little bit more about
child safety um covering the Hindenberg
research report and then I want want to
talk about the metaverse and I want to
talk about financial responsibility
within Roblox which is something you and
I spoke about offline and I I definitely
want to get to all right we'll be back
right after this and we're back here on
big technology podcast with Roblox CEO
Dave bazooki Dave thank you so much for
coming and speaking with us I've been
telling you I told you right beforehand
that I've been following Roblox for a
very long time uh got younger cousins
friends kids that use it and gotten a
chance to see the platform and uh it's a
fascinating place and they they do love
it so U let's ask a couple of these
safety questions just my job I have to
ask you them um so don't get too mad at
me but I got to run through some of
these accusations we actually like
talking about this and we feel it's a
wonderful area for the future to really
lean in on so we don't if anything we
welcome the discussion okay great that's
great to hear so let me bring up some of
the points that Hindenberg research made
and and toss them over to you uh first
they say that Roblox uh has lied to
investors regulators and advertisers
about the number of people on the
platform invest inflating a key metric
by 25 to
42% uh and that engage yeah it's
interesting that Hindenberg is no longer
in business um now I'm not going to say
there's any
correlation right to their out of
business now yes but it is interesting
they're no longer in business and and on
this point in particular particular you
know on TV publicly on earnings call we
completely disavow the the whole
allegation and the the interesting thing
is investors can look at the ratio of
the time on Roblox to the hours on
Roblox to the bookings on Roblox that
that's available for four or five years
and you can watch the ratios of all of
those and um when you dig into that math
it becomes very apparent that their
research was completely flawed 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 uh 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
acceler 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 can to 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
the there's some interesting thing if we
if we imagined 34 of the accounts on
Roblox were 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 bot raw cash so
yeah we we disavow the significance of
bots in really distorting our numbers
and that is the cash that Roo players
are spending within the
game spending that spent by so Bots
don't typically spend cash um and so we
we do think because our ratio relatively
of cash intake to hours to dius is
inspectable for four or five years um it
highlights those you know kind of the
the reason we push so back hard on those
allegations now one of the things they
say is that um you talked about how you
track active accounts uh but there could
be one user with multiple accounts and
one of the things they say is that
Roblox doesn't dealt or basically bring
down the number of players uh to
individual users it's more on the
account level yeah I'll I'll I'll share
this is a common practice and it's one
of the reasons why many companies report
daily active accounts or daily active uh
user accounts it's because um we
wouldn't we wouldn't reject you know you
or I might have two Gmail accounts and
uh we might use them for different
things so we we count accounts we count
them every day and we think it's the
best way to report on what's happening
on our platform right okay let's go over
to Child Safety uh again we'll mention
Hindenberg is is not in business but
they did say that their research
revealed uh XR that that roox is an
x-rated pedophile hellscape exposing
children to grooming pornography violent
content and extremely abusive speech now
even if it's just at you know much
smaller percentage than they they talked
about that would be an issue so how do
you react to that yeah I would I would
go even further and say we are disturbed
by even one bad issue on the plat
like it's it's serious stuffff for us um
all of our employees many of them have
kids on the platform I have cousins on
the platform right now playing all the
time uh but every day tens and tens and
tens of millions of people are having an
amazing experience on our platform right
now one issue is too much um we
constantly are improving Ming and
getting better we shipped over 30 safety
improvements in the last year we had a
huge release in November around parental
controls and giving parents um more
control and we run every single asset
every single video you know every single
image through Ai and then one thing
people don't quite always realize is
unlike most other platforms on Roblox
there is no sharing of images there is
no posting of images that does happen on
a lot of other platforms on Roblox
people are connecting and communicating
so we take it very seriously and it's
really something we really focus on
right they said that they were uh they
registered as a child and found games
like escape to Epstein Island and Diddy
party 600 diddy games including uh
survive Diddy and the run from Diddy
simulator um I would say I would say in
pop
culture um it's no excuse for us terms
that sometimes are very welcome in five
hours in our culture can all of a sudden
turn into very bad terms and I would say
we're constantly exper you know
accelerating the velocity of picking up
things like
that last thing on this I mean I mean
yeah okay last thing on this they say
that you reported a 2% over your decline
uh and Trust in safety expenses as you
were pushing to profitability in the
second quarter of
2024 um would seem to me like as your
users increase that would be an
investment that you'd want to
increase yeah what's interesting is they
don't have access to our internal graphs
that we track so carefully and uh you
know I track all the time we track in
our our staff meeting on the quality of
our safety systems on the accuracy of
our safety systems on our vision um
really to protect people of all ages not
just under 13 but 13 through 17 and even
18 and up and all of those all of those
systems are getting so much better
continuously over time the one thing
they are noticing is in many areas we're
accelerating Ai and in many cases we're
able to move people um to more high
level roles in the company
so that that's a that's really an apple
to oranges thing we would push back and
say all of our systems are getting
better as we move to more AI on those
systems okay and I was I was uh going to
move on but I do want to follow up on
one thing you said which is that
culturally things can uh appear normal
one day and then next thing you know
like allegations come out and they're
different but something like escape to
epland or like uh survive Diddy like
there's no way that they were find at
one moment and then not in the other I I
would say in in those areas
where we have historically put an
enormous focus on the actual 3D content
we are more and more incorporating the
3D experience as well as the description
of the experience in a holistic way and
so we're always improving
that what does that mean well I think
what you're saying uh what I'm saying is
the 3D experience itself which we've
been very very careful of in in what you
can actually do in that your I'm
agreeing with you the title of
experience can also matter and needs to
be more responsive to cultural events
right okay all right so uh I actually
want to speak with you about something
concrete that also came up in our
Discord which is that uh Apple recently
said it's going to let parents share the
kids uh a ages to limit app access um
I'm very curious like do you what you
think about this move uh do you support
it and um yeah the question is that we
got here is um should that be expanded
to more operating system more operating
systems and codified into law so I want
to put that to you this is really a good
one and we've we've taken the
posture that we can't wait for mobile
providers or Os us and we have have to
be fully capable of doing it on our own
whether it's in age estimation how we
filter all text how we filter all voice
all of that as these systems come to
play and as we get a more reliable
signal maybe from a mobile
phone we of course will use to to the
degree we can trust that signal as part
of how we build our safety systems but I
would say we can't we can't be waiting
for that and have taken the the posture
we can't wait for that but do you think
other operating systems should follow
Apple's lead here basically it's a
parent inputting the age of a child sort
of to make sure that an app has that
information and can gate content
appropriately I I feel if we could see
on a mobile phone or some other
device that a person we can really trust
as a parent has really said that is an
eight-year-old we would use that signal
and that signal would be helpful to us
but as far as um WEA between operating
systems and our legislature that's going
to be a forced issue or voluntary issue
we're kind of building irrespective of
it okay all right I want to wrap up
talking about one of my favorite uh
conversations here uh that I have with
my friends uh because they have their
kids I don't have kids yet hopefully
someday we will um and we're going to
run into this issue I'm sure because
they're going to be on their phones and
iPads uh without a doubt as a kids of a
tech reporter this is comes with a
territory um they uh they beg the
parents for money to spend on Roblox and
my friends are like what do I do here do
I give my daughter money to spend on the
internet and you know buy uh dress on
Roblox or do I like not give them that
money or give them a physical
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 well first off I remember
when I was in kindergarten and I got uh
10 or 15 cents to go buy 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 V 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 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 100% a parental choice I would
I would never recommend to a parent oh
you should spend money on Roblox I would
recommend to a parent to think through
their situation their family financial
literacy and I would say the Roblox
angle is I think more and more young
people as they build financial literacy
May balance physical world financial
with digital world like we already do
that right we have subscriptions and we
have online things with physical things
and so I do think um as part if for
those parents who are interested in
financial literacy this can be a kind of
a compliment to that um there there's
another thing about it in that there in
a way there are situations in roblocks
where young people
might be able to spend virtual currency
in ways that we would you know buying a
ticket for an airplane or something that
in a little bit of a way is a simulator
of things to see later in life so you
know I would leave it to parents but I
think it's it's getting to be an
interesting mix yeah my advice to my
friend is do it give them money it
doesn't have to be a lot it be coule
maybe a couple bucks a week or a month
and it is an amazing educational tool I
think because it shows the kid you have
a budget you immediately have a budget
if it's a dollar or two and okay like is
what they're buying the most valuable
stuff in the world like a new shirt or a
ski hat on their Avatar I don't know
what you'll say I'll say no but uh I
think that like they're going to
eventually end up in the real world and
they're going to have you know $1,000 in
their bank account and they're going to
have to learn how to allocate that and
then hopefully more and I I think that
early budgeting is really helpful I'm
going to I would definitely do it it's
an interesting thing that someone will
probably write a research study on is it
better for kids to give one lump of
virtual currency every month or to give
a little bit of virtual currency every
day the once a month may have more
educational Financial liter literacy
impact than the once a day thing yeah
like you here's your budget um you want
to spend it go ahead but you're not
getting any more until you know the next
quote unquote paycheck I mean maybe they
have to work for it maybe do some chores
and you'll get $2 in your Roblox account
and you spend that on the hat or the
skateboard I don't know David I got to
tell you my avatar is ugly I mean I'm
embarrassed to be walking around with
mine uh but I do think that like yeah it
it's this thing where you learn work
translates to money money is finite
right and this is what it does
I if only all parents could copy your
speech right there this is your
allowance you're not getting anymore I
thought that that was a good model for
every parent in the world great uh and
so let's just close with this um CEO of
Roblox uh you're you have 85 million
users um what do the next five years
look like for you if things go really
well uh I'm super optimist IC like the
like we've said We Believe 10% of the
world's gaming Market can run on Roblox
that's our Target we think it's going to
usher in a lot of optimism a lot of
human connection around the world um
allowing more people to learn and create
and I do think also an opportunity to
usher in the use of 3D AI in a really
safe and civil way so never been more
optimistic
all right David look thank you so much
for spending the time talking with me I
learned a ton about where generative AI
is going we talked so much about text
generation voice generation 3D
generation game generation a model that
understands the world to me is the next
Frontier and you're living that so
that's that's quite cool maybe we get
scoop Hunter on the platform one day I
don't know I want to play scoop Hunter
I'll send you it's live as an as a CL
autoa right now and um and yeah
definitely thank you for taking time of
the tougher questions and for showing us
where the platform is going so great
speaking with you and really hope to
have you back sometime soon thank you
Alex awesome David thank you so much uh
thank you to the Roblox team for putting
David on the show with me and ronon and
I will be back on Friday to break down
the week's news so we'll see you next
time on big technology podcast