{"id":138338,"date":"2026-08-13T06:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-08-13T06:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/138338\/"},"modified":"2026-08-13T06:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-08-13T06:17:11","slug":"saber-ceo-makes-rideshares-undisclosed-ai-mess-even-worse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/138338\/","title":{"rendered":"Saber CEO Makes Rideshare’s Undisclosed AI Mess Even Worse"},"content":{"rendered":"

Rideshare \u201cStimulator\u201d\u00a0was revealed nearly two weeks ago in a short trailer teasing its gig-economy driving-sim satire<\/a>. But most people probably didn\u2019t hear about it until its former lead writer accused publisher Saber Interactive of replacing her with ChatGPT \u201cmidway through development.\u201d Saber Interactive went on to deny that claim, but now its CEO, Matthew Karch<\/a>, has confirmed he would have done so \u201cin retrospect.\u201d He blasted the former Saber developer while promoting AI in a new personal statement on the controversy that admits generative AI is used in the game.<\/p>\n

Earlier this week<\/a>, narrative designer Stella Sacco, who was a lead writer at Saber Interactive on Stuntman Hollywood and other games until 2024, claimed that Saber had replaced her with generative AI tools and was not disclosing the plagiarism tech\u2019s involvement in development on the Rideshare \u201cStimulator\u201d Steam page. Sacco added that the decision to implement AI came from Saber, the game\u2019s publisher, and not Unigine, its developer.<\/p>\n

Saber Interactive later pushed back in a statement to PC Gamer<\/a>. \u201cNeither Saber nor Unigine have replaced any writers with AI for Rideshare or any other game,\u201d a representative for the company said. However, they did confirm generative AI was being used for the game\u2019s previously undisclosed \u201cfree ride\u201d mode. \u201cThe game will also feature an experimental, free-ride mode that by necessity incorporates AI as the number of passengers in the game is infinite,\u201d the spokesperson added.<\/p>\n

Sacco responded to the response by doubling down. \u201cI was there, and it was my job to write the game, and then it wasn\u2019t once Matt Karch decided using ChatGPT would be great publicity for the game,\u201d she told PC Gamer. Sacco proceeded to elaborate on social media<\/a>: \u201cMy boss, to his credit, argued over and over with the c-level who pushed the AI\u2014\u2019we already have Stella and she\u2019s funny and she\u2019s good at this, she\u2019s done live games before so live ops are no problem,\u2019 etc\u2014but the suit insisted \u201cgamers love new tech\u201d so using AI would be \u2018great marketing.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Karch has now weighed in directly on the matter in a new statement to This Week In Video Games<\/a>. The Saber CEO personally attacked the former Saber developer as being replaced by \u201csomeone more talented,\u201d but didn\u2019t deny that generative AI is involved in \u201ccertain parts of the game,\u201d which will eventually be disclosed on Rideshare\u2019s Steam page.<\/p>\n

\u201cStella who?\u201d Karch\u2019s statement to TWIVG began. \u201cI had to ask Claude because I have never spoken to her or seen her. We have already said we are using AI for certain parts of the game and will update the Steam page once we have finalized the feature set.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued:<\/p>\n

Let me clarify that the entire story script, were it to win an award, would go to someone who can walk up on stage and receive it. It was always our intention to reveal this until Stella violated her confidentiality clause and revealed this before we were ready.<\/p>\n

We look at our use of AI in this particular game, which will be a lower priced title, as a plus for consumers.<\/p>\n

As far as Stella is concerned, she was replaced by someone more talented and terminated for a variety of reasons a few months later. From what I can gather she enjoys controversy even more than I do. I would frankly in retrospect have been happy to replace her with AI. At least we would be dealing with someone programmed to be honest.<\/p>\n

Sacco followed by claiming that Karch was \u201clashing out\u201d due to not wanting people to know the extent to which AI was used in the game. \u201cEverything I said was true,\u201d she added. \u201cHere\u2019s more truth: that statement is remarkably pathetic for the CEO of any company to be making, and combined with the AI use it will do far more damage to Saber\u2019s reputation than it ever could mine. This screed will be many people\u2019s first exposure to the Saber brand.\u201d<\/p>\n

The controversy, and how Karch has dealt with it, certainly hasn\u2019t helped Saber on the Rideshare Steam page. An otherwise quiet discussion section is now full of people arguing over the game\u2019s use of AI for certain aspects and its failure to disclose that on Valve\u2019s storefront. The company leaves it up to studios and publishers to be honest about what amount of genAI is used in their games and how. For now, Rideshare will be known as the game that initially hid its use of AI from people who wishlisted it, and whose publisher decided to attack the person who blew the whistle on that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Rideshare \u201cStimulator\u201d\u00a0was revealed nearly two weeks ago in a short trailer teasing its gig-economy driving-sim satire. But most…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":138339,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[24,580,68333,157,67593,67594],"class_list":["post-138338","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-openai","tag-ai","tag-chatgpt","tag-matt-karch","tag-openai","tag-rideshare-stimulator","tag-saber-interactive"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138338","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138338"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138338\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138338"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138338"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138338"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}