Generative AI

 

As the world of technology continues to unfurl like a snake around the world, waiting for it's moment to constrict and strangle the last vestibules of life and personality out of us- the question of what AI is capable of and where it should be used is popping up in every other conversation, it feels like. On one hand we have new stories based on 'It's a Wonderful Life', being read out by the, now long dead, star of that movie over Apps- and on the other we have crappy AI generated 'Art' being spewed out by the hundreds of dozens ever other second. And trust me, I actually a follow a bunch of different art boards on a handful of different websites- they're all regularly indurate with so much AI art that the smart ones add filters to cut through all of them. And they're recognisable as AI at a mere glance, it's insanity to think anyone really expects to go wool-pulling with them.

But generative AI has become so much more prevalent across the Internet then you're probably comfortable with. Afterall, just look at your average browser, at your average search engine- how many have AI features slotted where you never asked for them? Bing has a whole AI delivery program thrown into it's algorithm that presumably is Microsoft's latest attempt to appear competitive to Google, Opera seems to partner up with a new AI integration service every other Tuesday- (the App tab is starting to get cluttered) and there's even talk of AI being employed in order to replace text-fill boxes- which would be like an assassination attempt to the casual SEO studying audience. All and all, it feels like the AI revolution has intentions to stay, whether we like it or not. And I'm veering more towards 'not' the more I stick around.

Because at the end of the day, I'm never as satisfied with a piece of AI delivered content as I am with handcrafted stuff, and I'm going to use Video Game as an example piece. Take Starfield, for example. That game has more unique locations than Skyrim and Fallout 4- and yet both Skyrim and Fallout 4 have comparable active player counts to the recently released Starfield. Why? Because the AI systems that allows Starfield to populate it's dozens of worlds fails to create interesting play experiences, whereas the smaller but handcrafted worlds of Skyrim and Fallout 4 deliver comprehensive, if limited, chances for play. Now Minecraft also has an AI that decides what populates it's world, and that game eclipses anything Bethesda has ever put out. But the difference is those algorithms have been relentless finetuned for more than a decade, they're brimming with content. Starfield's generative AI is young and stupid and barren- and boring.

Of course, that's not going to stop aspiring developers from looking over their shoulder at the hot-new AI advancement, and in fact the big man at Take2 himself was recently waxing lyrical about the possibility of Ai in the development room. In the age of speculation and guess work, this has of course led to rampant speculation about the role AI plays in the NPC interaction in Grand Theft Auto VI- none of which has had any sort of confirmation as every one of us is just grasping at phantoms and straws right now. Personally I think development of Grand Theft Auto VI long predates the AI boom, and it would be insane for Rockstar to start developing a new AI system for their NPCs from scratch mid-way through development- that's the kind of mistake that destined-for-failure projects make. So I don't think we'll be seeing AI in the game- but what if we were?

Speculation guesses that an AI powered NPC system in a Rockstar game could equip the populations of the cities to naturally react to the actions of the player. One provided example was the ability to strike up a conversation with a nobody, have them mention having a baby and then being invited back to their place to see the aforementioned baby. Now I have to be honest- that is the dumbest implementation of AI I could imagine. First off, NPCs already react to what players do in Rockstar games, they don't need advanced AI systems to freak out when you point a gun at them, or dive out the way when your car comes barrelling up the sidewalk. Secondly- why in the hell would I strike up a conversation to see someone's baby in a GTA game? This isn't the Sims! And thirdly, when in the hell would Rockstar grow insane enough to put a baby in a GTA game? That is a recipe for disaster, you know how sensitive Americans get!

More interestingly would be the potential for AI to do exactly what Bethesda wants it to do- fill in the spaces of worlds they're not equipped to fill by hand. If we were ever to have a Grand Theft Auto game wherein every building was enterable, I figure it would be with this sort of technology. Office spaces could be filled with handcrafted cubicles and supplies by an AI, mansions would have their luxury items, hovels would be covered in cheap trash. The trick will be teaching AI how to generate natural feeling world design practices, such as telling stories through intelligent and thoughtful placement. Both concepts that any AI, short of beating the Turning Test, is conceptually incapable of. Such a shame. More evidence that it just isn't really there yet- and doesn't really appear to be making much in the way of headroom either, what with the impending risk of model collapse as input data becomes more corrupted.

The cherry atop the cake? All of these AI tools are down right cancer to the climate, with GPU being practically factory pressed in order to spit out all the demands from them. The US is busy trying to squeeze Nvidia into not providing China with decent 40-series chips, meanwhile no-one appears to care about the stupid level of E-Waste these giant AI run data-farms are spouting out on the daily, right in the midst of a climate crisis- which is exactly the time when you don't need something like this to start popping off around the world. Generative AI may be the future but if things keep up at this rate, that future might just be an oxymoron lack of itself. If that makes any remote sense. So what is there really to do?

Shout, scream, run from it- all the same, AI arrives. There really is no putting this particular genie back in the bottle and it seems we're just going to have to wait until that all annoying honeymoon period ends and everyone starts to slowly realise this is either too expensive or too limited to do literally everything in their daily lives that they are too lazy to do. Until then expect more stories about lawyers who let AI do all their research and ended up conjuring completely fabricated precedent cases to quote, real content-filled websites becoming steadily overrun with AI powered content farms and people who don't know any better throwing everything into the AI train only to find out it's actually heading right for them to run them over. (Elon.) Them's just the breaks with the Artificial developements.