mrmaplebar

Fuck man...

Someone should just steal NVidia's driver code and run it through an LLM, because I heard that it magically makes everything public domain somehow!

Ooof. And it's only going to get more expensive when the AI industry is no longer able to afford to subsidize it with buttloads of investment money.

Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart - A super fun and challenging Mario Kart style game made in the original Doom engine.

CatsEyeXI - An unofficial, custom Final Fantasy XI MMO server with fast leveling, solo play and many quality of life features. (Following guides is still recommended, because it's a complicated and vague game at the best of times!)

ETLegacy - A free to play version of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory, a fun and fast team-based first person shooter.

To be perfectly honest, I'd still be against it as long as it is trained on the stolen work of regular people.

Not only is it devoid of artistry and creativity, generative AI as it is today is cultural exploitation and plagiarism on an unprecedented industrial scale. It's incredibly unethical on top of being slop.

• Today's unregulated generative AI is exploitative and misanthropic bullshit that is toxic to human culture and society. They are ripping us all off, raising the cost of living, ruining the internet and media landscape, and destroying the planet, all in the name of replacing human workers for maximum profits.
• "Influencers" are just walking, talking billboards. Human advertisements. You might as well follow Ronald McDonald himself on X.com.
• Similarly, "content creator" is a boardroom buzzword created by some douchebag tech suit to describe the people who fill their "platform" with generic and valueless shit. If the thing you're making can best be desribed as "content" then it likely has little or no value to anyone. Make something that can be described specifically.
• "Six seven" isn't funny, will never be funny, and never was funny. It's not like there's something to it that I'm missing, because it's seemingly totally devoid of meaning in the first place. I guess this is what passes for comedy when you spend your formative years in a pandemic lockdown.

We were told that games were "art", and that this new "creative" medium that we grew up with really mattered. Many of us (gamers and gamedevs alike) happily agreed...

But where is the artistry in outsourcing your assets to the big tech slop machine? What is creative about outsourcing your design, code and storytelling to an LLM?

Is it easy? Sure... Quick? Maybe... Cheap? For now, while big tech is happy to prop it up with other people's money.

But it's not cool and it's not "art". Like every piss filtered Studio Ghibli knockoff, there's no artistry or creativity in it whatsoever. (They know that too, which is why companies are trying to hide or understate their use of AI.)

I just hope that they aren't naively expecting people to pay full price, or even at all, for AI slop games.

Putting aside the massive ethical and legal implications of blatantly exploiting human culture and works in the name of corporate profits...

I really hope they aren't expecting us mere mortals to pay for AI generated games and media.

Because if I end up losing my job to a robot that was trained on my own stolen words, images, code and sounds, paying $70 for some slop is right down at the bottom of the list of things I want to do.

Sure, they could have used Mickey Mouse, a gray box, or a low poly model whipped in Blender in 5 minutes... After all, that's what people have been doing for like 30 years. None of those things would have required the mass industrialized exploitation of millions of people's work and culture. None of those things would add value to some tech bros business.

As a side note, something tells me that if they had used Mickey for their placeholder art it wouldn't have "accidentally" found its way into the final game.

Plus... how do I know they didn't use AI as the basis for all of the art in their game? For all I know, AI was central to setting the aesthetic of this game due to being at the very front end of their production pipeline. Hard to know, especially when they are so sketchy about it. (At least Larian were bold/stupid enough to admit that the concepts for their game start with AI.)

It cheapens the game and undermines whatever work they actually did.

Calling your game "indie" when you're actively exploiting artists to make it is like calling your Etsy store "diy" despite knowing that it's a bunch of Chinese dropped shipped junk made by children in a sweatshop. It's disingenuous at best.

Unless the model that they used was trained entirely on artwork that was public domain, creative commons, licensed or owned, then its basically certain that it wasn't used responsibly.

You cannot make something on a foundation of someone else's exploitation and be considered responsible, ethical, original or independent.

It's not worth it. Some parts of life suck ass, but the good parts exist and are worth it.

Instead of killing yourself, try to "kill" your expectations and ego. "Kill" the idea of the person you need to be or the live you need to live.

Consider Diogenes, who lived happily like a dog in the market of classical Athens, because he understood that the things that society prescribed value are arbitrary and artificial. He felt no pressure to be or achieve anything in particular--he simply lived, like the animal that he understood himself to be.

The social pressures and forces that bother us today are likely just as arbitrary and artificial as the ones that Diogenes faced. A simple change of philosophy maybe be all you need.

Finally, you should also consider the chemical aspect of your emotions, and that your depression may be caused or exacerbated by an imbalance of natural chemicals in your brain. It's worth seeking medical advice from a psychiatrist to see if drugs can help you.

I get it. And I know that feeling alone sucks.

On the other hand, there are plenty of other American otaku, myself included! There are more than enough to find other people to be social with.

I reccomend looking for geek related events and gatherings in your nearest city, conventions, movie screenings, barcades, hobby groups, and so on. My city (Portland) has all kinds of otaku stuff going on all the time. I went to a 3 hour long screening of the entirety of Gunbuster, and it was a full house, with people selling art, DVDs, and model kits in the lobby. Even making friends online has meaning, and If you can find likeminded people online who are local to you, you might be able to turn online relationships into offline ones. There is no shortage of nerds out there I promise.

But actually talking to people is the harder part, right?

No joke... if you shower, wear clean clothes and a neutral antiperspirant, and figure out something nice to say to people (a simple compliment like "I love your shirt!" is a easy ice breaker and sets you up for a follow up conversation), it's a great way to practice being social. Make sure that your attitude is positive and try to avoid making people feel bad, stupid, ugly, etc.

Now... Not every social interaction is going to turn into a lasting relationship, and some of them might be awkward. (Occasionally a subset of people are going to be rude jerks for seemingly no reason, but that'll actually a bigger problem for them then it is for you.) So I don't recommend socializing with a specific goal, like finding a girlfriend, in mind.

You're much better off trusting the process and simply trying to amass small social victories. For example, asking someone how their week is going, learning somebody's name who you see often, complementing someone, joining a new group, etc.

I'm in my late 30s and I've made some personal social milestones that I'm proud of over the last few years, so I think it's never too late to improve your social situation.

Good luck, man.