Posted by anigbrowl 12/21/2025
For instance, see Luddites: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luddite
> But the Luddites themselves “were totally fine with machines,” says Kevin Binfield, editor of the 2004 collection Writings of the Luddites. They confined their attacks to manufacturers who used machines in what they called “a fraudulent and deceitful manner” to get around standard labor practices. “They just wanted machines that made high-quality goods,” says Binfield, “and they wanted these machines to be run by workers who had gone through an apprenticeship and got paid decent wages. Those were their only concerns.”[1]
[1] https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/what-the-luddites-rea...
The issue is not the technology per se, it's how it's applied. If it eliminates vast swathes of jobs and drives wages down for those left, then people start to have a problem with it. That was true in the time of the Luddites and it's true today with AI.
They just don't like it when the machines are able to do the mediocre job they get paid to do.
Imagine if we had listened to the Luddites back in the day...
By all means, I use it. In some instances it is useful. I think it is mostly a technology that causes damages to humanity though. I just don't really care about it.
AI exists by calculations without invoking law or social agreement.
Which will endure?
IP depends on belief and enforcement.
AI depends on matter and energy.
I wonder if the game directors had actually made their case beforehand, they would have perhaps been let to keep the award.
That said, the AI restriction itself is hilarious. Almost all games currently being made would have programmers using copilot, would they all be disqualified for it? Where does this arbitrary line start from?
I think that is almost certainly untrue, especially among indie games developers, who are often the most stringent critics of gen ai.
Which LLM told you that?
> Almost all games currently being made would have programmers using VSCode.
Which clearly isn't the case, unless they like to suffer in regards to the Unreal and Unity integrations.
AI OK: Code
AI Bad: Art, Music.
It's a double standard because people don't think of code as creative. They still think of us as monkeys banging on keyboards.
Fuck 'em. We can replace artists.
It's more like the code is the scaffolding and support, the art and experience is the core product. When you're watching a play you don't generally give a thought to the technical expertise that went into building the stage and the hall and its logistics, you are only there to appreciate the performance itself - even if said performance would have been impossible to deliver without the aforementioned factors.
Games always have their game engine touch and often for indie games it's a good part of the process. See for example Clair Obscur here which clearly has the UE5 caracter hair. It's what the game can and cannot do and shapes the experience.
Then the gameplay itself depend a lot on how the code was made and iterations on the code also shape the gameplay.
- Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth clearly had two completely decoupled teams working on the main game and the open world design respectively
- Cyberpunk 2077 is filled with small shoeboxes of interactable content
It used to be there were tons of websites, like textures.com, which curated a huge database of textures, usable by art professionals and hobbyists alike. Some of it was free, others you had to pay for, both generally speaking, it wasn't too expensive, and if you picked up 3d modeling as a hobby, you could produce pretty decent results without spending a dime.
Then came the huge companies (you know which ones) which slurped up all these websites, and turned them into these SaaS monstrosities, with f2p mechanics. Textures were no longer free, but you had to pay in 'tokens' which you got from a subscription, which pushed you into opaque pricing models, bundling subscriptions, accidental yearly signups with cancellation fees, you know the drill.
Then came AI, which is somehow fair use, and instead of having to pay for that stuff, you could ask SD to generate a tiling rock texture for you.
Is this blatant copyrightwashing? I'd argue yes. But in this case, does copyright uphold any morally supportable princible, or does it help artists get paid?
F no.
Few care about the mainstream game review sites or oddball game award shows as their track record is terrible (Concord reviews).
Most go by player reviews, word of mouth, and social media.
For those who might care, we use generative AI as much as possible in every way possible without compromising our vision, this includes sound, art, animation, and programming. These are often edited or entirely redone (effectively placeholders). It's part of the process, similar to using procedural art generation tools like geometry nodes in Blender or fluid sim particles generators.
And btw, both UE5 and Unity now have gen AI features (and addons) that all developers can and will use.