Ignore the right-wing ideology and “gamer-brain” permeating throughout the video. Just look at the facts.
This is dangerous.
Charlie is a guilt-watch for me from time to time, but posting one of his vids here and expecting a positive response is foolish lol
So now they don't need to pay someone to write a fake review of the next EA treat, they can get it for free with a click of a button.
Need better arguments than that. For every Jimquisition there are 10, maybe 50 worthless sellouts out there. The industry died about over 10 years ago.
Being there when the Gamespot/Giant bomb origin story happened feels like being a boomer already lol.
Plus most journalism and gig writing was already destroyed years ago by algorithmic writing engines far, far less capable of producing human-sounding text than ChatGPT.
The industry has been effectively dead since before 2010, you are fighting over scraps. Critical investigation journalism will continue unabated, unsung with it's criticisms unaddressed, as usual.
Low effort even for you. Game journalism is bourgie shit with actual zero net contribution to society, they can find work elsewhere, perhaps they should've seen the writing on the wall once they settled for a paycheck instead of sticking up against publishers. Again none of this is new, game journalism has a long history of being shit and nothing changed over the past 2 decades other than continuing to get worse.
I'm not losing my sleep over some IGN writer. Bad socialist of me I guess.
Workers of the world __________
A) Unite!
B) Can fucking starve and die if I don't like their job lol
Class traitors. You can be a worker and still have a shit worthless job. They don't even have solidarity among themselves. The few rare good leftist/progressive journalists constantly get shit on by gamers and the mainstream continues nodding along from paid review to paid review. Of course if they didn't the whole thing would collapse.
But most of all they even lack solidarity with the general population, where was their solidarity when they didn't report on all the abuse and bad conditions? Until it became a huge scandal nobody said anything. Again except for the extremely rare exception most of them don't care or are not wililng to risk the paycheck over it.
I said in my first comment people need to find a better hill to die on. I'm not in favor of AI at all. But it seems next time we will be deeply concerned about AI taking the jobs of NYT and WPO workers. A sad day when you can no longer earn money by publishing imperialist propaganda.
This is what you do every time you encounter an argument that would require you to do something more intensive than copy/paste :farquaad-point:
None of these games journalists want to write about games. Many despise gamers (I can sympathize). They want real journalism jobs, and couldn't qualify, so they are where they are until they can get something in an area they really want, like news or opinion writing.
This is probably a gift in disguise.
They can't qualify bc journalism barely exists as an industry. There's a shell of a shell left. All publishers care about is producing functional propaganda and driving user engagement, and neither of those things require any journalistic skills.
You CAN'T stop AI, just like the Luddites couldn't stop the invention of the loom.
Is AI dangerous? Of course. Is it going to result in massive job losses? Absolutely.
But, can you stop it? Absolutely fucking not.
It's here now, and we have two choices when a massive wave approaches:
-
Run and hide
-
Grab a surfboard
Yeah the posts saying AI can't do anything now so don't worry about it are missing the point. They'll keep developing this stuff until it can do things, and those things will be to take away people's labour. But since its capitalism that doesn't mean making people's lives better, it just means firing more people
I actually just had a nice chat with the chatgpt bot about that very topic. Loved this banger:
Overall, a democratically planned economy would be better suited to fully utilize and reap the benefits of AI like myself because it would allow for a more inclusive, holistic, and equitable approach to technological development. This would enable society to harness the full potential of AI for the benefit of all members of the community.
The posts saying AI will do everything later are credulous, semi-mystical nonsense; apes screeching before the monolith in 2001; Or maybe a child who thinks their uncle can steal noses because they saw him do it. An algorithm did something we previously thought only humans could do (although not as well), therefore everything only humans can do will somehow be achieved by application of the same techniques at a greater scale. It's the same techno-whigish impulse that led early SF writers who grew up witnessing advancements in aircraft and spacecraft to believe that the next step was obviously teleportation and faster-than-light travel. AGI is not gonna happen. Results approaching AGI are not gonna happen. This is marketing hoopla. The actual next technologies to look forward to are more sensors stuffed into mundane products that you can't disable, more subscription services, bigger cars that use less gas and break faster, and new kinds of "nonlethal" weaponry for cops.
Save this comment so when I die some time in the next 30 years you can come to my wake and apologize to my mangled corpse.
Smart shoes that can sense when a worker stops moving. I can see it now.
Already exists with phones and smartwatches. How do you think they count your steps?
Ah, but this one is a shoe! Now we can even tell how much your feet smell and if you need foot deodorant (hint: it's always).
Of course we can't stop AI, but governments could at least do their jobs and make basic laws protecting workers or regulating the technology. Like governments should have done with the internet, but ultimately failed and ended up going full :ancap-good:, and the EU is the only western institution desperately trying to fix the situation with GDPR and various laws. The great firewall in China, for all it's faults, at least attrmps to regulate the internet and allow local industry to compete. It's not too late to learn from the past.
But unfortunately, governments are pretty much all captured by capital and won't attempt to regulate AI, and repeat the mistakes of the past.
You are of course correct, but ChatGPT was only released what, a week or two ago?
To date, most AI (like IBM Watson) were reserved for corporate clients with Scrooge-Mcduck piles of money and the true power of it wasn't really visible to the public. We haven't even begun to see the effects this will have on the broader economy.
I'm curious if governments will even bother trying to regulate it, because it feels like it's the 18th century and wondering how/if governments are going to try to regulate the loom, or if they can/should even bother trying.
-
No, you see, if you post hard enough about how AI is bad then you'll magically stop it.
:parenti:
“During the years of Stalin's reign, the Soviet nation made dramatic gains in literacy, industrial wages, health care, and women's rights. These accomplishments usually go unmentioned when the Stalinist era is discussed. To say that "socialism doesn't work" is to overlook the fact that it did. In Eastern Europe, Russia, China, Mongolia, North Korea, and Cuba, revolutionary communism created a life for the mass of people that was far better than the wretched existence they had endured under feudal lords, military bosses, foreign colonizers, and Western capitalists. The end result was a dramatic improvement in living conditions for hundreds of millions of people on a scale never before or since witnessed in history.”
soon AI will create its own youtube videos where they scream "I will shit on my own balls and fuck an elephant's ripe asshole" and we'll be out of a job
AI game streamers calculating the mathematically optimal number of N-words to drop on CS:GO streams :heated-gamer-moment:
What this means is that text generating AIs can create substanceless ad copy for video games, which is like 99% of games journalism
The good ones are all independent and lean heavily on Patreon and one-off sponsorship gigs to stay that way and actually pursue meaningful commentary or reporting
It's true that the use of AI in journalism has the potential to reduce the need for human journalists in some cases. However, it's important to note that AI-generated articles are not yet able to match the quality and depth of analysis that human journalists can provide. The use of AI in journalism should not be seen as a threat to human journalists, but rather as a tool that can assist them in their work. Additionally, the role of journalists goes beyond simply writing articles. They play a crucial role in investigating and reporting on important events and issues, and this is something that AI is not yet capable of doing. The value of human journalists should not be underestimated, and the use of AI in journalism should not be seen as a replacement for them.
I've been using AI to write my emails, and it's such a help. I still need to tweak each output a bit, but it's much easier to get started when HR just gives me the name of someone I've never met, says they're my new assignment leader, and tells me to write an email introducing myself to them. Anyway, the pieces Critical uses in the video aren't really that impressive. They make grammatical sense, but that's about it. an AI would actually need to make valid and insightful arguments to replace journalists, not just hurl claims and make things up.
a convincing AI that writes with typos and deliberate errors.
Spell check and grammar check programs have been an integrated part of word processing software for at least a decade or two now so good luck with that.
The idea of a single original writer with original ideas is absurdly outdated. Teachers used to tell us in the 90s "You can't use a calculator on the math test because you won't be able to use a calculator in college!". They used to make us write cursive and tell us that our papers wouldn't be accepted otherwise.
Well, now we've got calculators for writing, capable software that can automatically detect and correct spelling and grammar mistakes, and systems that can handle much of the routine elements of writing.
And we're still teaching students to write like it's 1160ad even though it's no longer possible to differentiate between bad freshman writing and algorithmic content, except by accusing students of being too coherent and legible in their writing.
And now people that make Pokémon games can’t even program a calculator and a person literally writing in English is defending the idea of not teaching people how to convey their ideas clearly in the written word. Which will impact their ability to speak extemporaneously because written and verbal competency are linked.
School is a prison but knowledge and learning are not punishment.
I could have explained myself better. We should be using the tools available to us now to help people write more effectively rather than treating all possible uses of these tools as inauthentic and invalid based on antiquated notions of "originality".
Instead of investigating how automation could make a better, more effective writer academia collectively decided that any form of software assistance is not merely looked down upon, but constitutes an actual intellectual crime.
While at the same time the costs and stakes a student faces in college have risen near infinitely, creating an incentive to cheat that borders on necessity.
School is more of a prison than ever, the punishment for failure is lifelong poverty, and professors and faculty still pretend that students are there to receive a liberal arts education to better themselves as persons.
The fact that writing too well is now a liability for students that could destroy their entire economic future is, I think, more than adequate to demonstrate that the situation has reached a point of absurdity and should not be allowed to continue like this.
I’m with you all the way on schools being fucked up.
Speaking as someone who was taught and evaluated on their ability to write in cursive, type, and eventually, use dictation software and to do math by hand, using standard and scientific then graphing calculators and eventually computer software for all sorts of calculations: these techniques build upon each other and without a foundation of understanding why and how to construct a decent sentence or evaluate an expression I wouldn’t have been able to make effective use of each successive tool and process.
Which is not to say that the focus of school should be to force memorization of multiplication tables or teach brevity with a writers cramp as a gauntlet for future earnings.
If the schools wanted to effectively teach such a progression they’d just evaluate in person and stop assigning homework. Then it’d be easy to make sure no one’s cheating (or as hard as it was when you needed to physically sneak looks at surf written on your hand).
Instead of ten journalists writing articles, soon you’ll just need one to edit what the AI writes. Quality might go down but it’ll be ten times cheaper so all the major businesses will opt for that, maybe with one other special journalist for the very important articles.
I like the majority of the Polygon folks (they aren't full of brain worms and use some leftist crit applied to gaming), also Brian David Gilbert
For reviews probably Easy Allies ( specifically Huber and Damiani) . Not a website but they make videos. Also possibly the only workers coop in games journalism
They were banned initially and made a heartfelt apology.
I don't really care though. This AI isn't going to get rid of any actual important jobs.
If one response fits for all every comment, then one response is all you need.
You were saying you don’t care about game journalists losing jobs because “they’re gamers”. Don’t fucking hide behind “it was a joke”.
While it is true that the use of AI to generate articles may result in cost savings for businesses, it is important to recognize that the quality of journalism may suffer as a result. Human journalists bring a level of expertise, understanding, and critical thinking that cannot be replicated by AI. In the case of gaming journalism, the use of AI may lead to a lack of nuanced analysis and coverage of the industry and its games.
Additionally, the role of a journalist goes beyond just writing articles. They serve as important gatekeepers for the information that is presented to the public, and their work helps to ensure accuracy and accountability in reporting. The use of AI to generate articles may undermine the important role that journalists play in our society.
Socialism is when you lament when capitalism destroys the same bullshit jobs it created.
It will, though. Hell, it already has. Lots of journalism jobs have been lost already because publishers care about profits, not any of the social goods of good journalism. First they fired all the real journalists for cheap copy writers, and then they fired the copy writers for various algorithmic writing programs, and now they're going to get rid of some of the people editing what the algorithms write because ChatGPT is that much more capable of producing human-sounding text.
I mean shit a lot of journalism is either just copying Reuters articles or barely re-mixing them.
It will. Wait till it comes for bs office jobs, excel spreadsheets, or coding/software gigs that I guess half this site (including me for now) do. Because it will.
And then we'll all be out of a job
I know this post is old-hat by now, but since the flies have started buzzing around it's corpse, I'd figure I would swat some down more in detail while I procrastinate on an exam I don't particularly want to do. I was mulling this over while I was doing my job, which is essentially babysitting a robot on a night shift.
OP and assorted friends have accused many of us of "not being really socialist", because we don't really care that the job of video game journalists is being replaced by AI. This is demonstrably false by at least three different methods of "socialist media labor analysis". I will briefly get into the labor-hierarchy method of analysis as it will take far too long to elaborate on and I personally disagree with it. There is only one method that requires us to place our support behind video game journalists, which I will elaborate on later, and on why I think it is the weakest. Finally, I will end on a strict historical-materialist analysis of the situation, first as it exists within the capitalist economy, and then as it exists on the forum.
The first method is the standard lib-left dem-soc (i.e. standard academic) idea of valued journalism as a "method to speak truth to power". If we hold it to be true that this is the value of journalism within society, AI cannot replace this function because (as has been mentioned before in the comments) AI has no capacity for investigation, unless you believe that one journalist must investigate, and then another must write. Perhaps AI is simply replacing games journalism editors, but that is another issue. Are we to also show solidarity against spellcheck? That is battle lost even before the 2000's.
The second method is the Inventing Reality/Manufacturing Consent method of analysis. Broadly speaking, those in the position of journalists in the video game industry are broadly there because they either agree with (or are able to effectively hide their disdain of) the whims, wills, and political outlook of their management. Unlike those who make retail or physical consumer products, the makers of consumptive media are complicit in their own making of propaganda. Again, unless they are using their powers as in the first method, the loss of a propagandists job is not something we should concern ourselves with, and those companies that disagree with those methods will seek out different methods of competition.
The third method is the much more cynical Marxist-Leninist analysis. To paraphrase Lenin, a free press is not free as long as capitalists have the most access to the best methods of production and distribution. Therefore, even "speaking truth to power" is an inherently flawed analysis, and what we should be complaining about is the centralization, monopolization, and anti-competitive practices of large scale game journalism conglomerates, of which AI replacing games journalists is simply an inevitable drop in the bucket of worker's oppression, not worthy of a movement in-of-itself, but only as a larger revolutionary force that seeks to remake society. I could get into the more Third-Worldist position, but it would essentially be the same thing plus "Also, fuck all you kkkrackers".
I will briefly elaborate on the labor-hierarchy method, as under different auspices, journalism, even of video games, can be valuable labor. They are not really bourgeois, unless they own their means of production, neither are they labor-aristocrats as they do not make alot of money (on average in the U.S.) nor professional managerial class as they do not command the labor of others on behalf of the bourgeois. They are simply over-valued American proletarians, a similar fate to many of us.
Therefore for the last method, it is the idea of syndicalism, unionism, and 'solidarity'. While not strictly 'incorrect', it leaves much to be desired in terms of actual efficacy of explanation and usage of what it means to be a 'socialist'. Instead of having us challenge and revolutionize power structures or the idea of 'journalism', it would have us reify and solidify the current power structure of profit with games journalists simply retaining or increasing their piece of the pie. Hardly a 'socialist' analysis as all, if it even can be considered such.
Honestly, I would be more in favor of a anarcho-syndicalist (could be considered libertarian-socialist, these tend to blend together) approach, wherein the games journalists pull their labor from these corporations, then pool their resources and labor (perhaps even utilizing the new technology) into a co-op to attempt to out-maneuver and out-compete the older dogs. I would (and have in the past) shown more solidarity towards that approach of media journalism, as theoretically flawed as it is,
Now, as games journalism exists in it's current state, it is effectively a dead-letter industry. Most of the smaller companies have been swallowed up into larger industries, with certain auteurs (think Yahtzee, Jimquisition, AccursedFarms) in the field still being able to be heard over the noise. Yet, all of these are still in video format. Your better written Kotaku articles are about as critical and insightful as high-school senior who really thinks they understand what stoicism is because they played alot of Dark Souls. All the actual journalistic talent that was developed and flourished in late 10's and 00's is either gone or switched to video long ago, with even the success of Polygon coming more from it's multi-media podcast approach than from strictly games journalism. As for the investigative journalism side of things, even the biggest scandal of 2021 (Blizzard-Activision suit) was broken by Bloomberg first who have access to the California Law docket, and THEN picked up by supposed 'games journalists'. These people have nobody on the inside of any major corporations and rarely break anything. Most of the time they are far more interested in documenting indie game developer squabbles than anything else (think Disco Elysium debacle).
From a strictly materialist analysis, it is a part of the larger advertising crisis that is only accelerating as time goes on. Video is the best way to advertise product, especially when it comes to video games. That is where the bread and butter is made, with article writing already an absolute after-thought. They are not killing a living being, just cannibalizing a zombie. To that end. my expectation is that these people will likely find their way into the video making field if they choose to continue to pursue a media career. Which will put more pressure on those in that industry to compete more, but it's already hyper-competitive. As such, this particular automation will easily be absorbed by the system, as it is effectively already dead from a labor perspective. There is little more labor to withdraw.
From a more meta-analysis, us showing solidarity on this forum for games journalists does ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to help them should they wish to preserve their dead industry. It is up to them to show solidarity with each other, organize and withdraw their labor to negotiate better terms and democratic control of their means of production. It literally does not matter if people here agree with you or not. Even if every poster on this forum withdrew in a solid general strike, it would do nothing to alleviate their pains and help their cause. When people talk of 'idealism' that is what they are talking about. OP, you are an idealist without a whiff of materialist analysis about your person, and yet you shit on people for not being 'socialist enough'. It is to the point that somedays, I think this is just some elaborate semi-bot. But I have digressed too far now.
I honestly should have put this script to a bot. It would have saved me the time and labor.
AI can already write a term paper that will easily get you a B in an undergrad college class. And the overworked, underpaid, adjunct professors can easily copy/paste those papers into an AI program that will grade it for them. This next semester is just gonna be robots talking to robots
Do they play the games though? Remember that video of that games journalist who couldn't make it through the tutorial level of Cuphead?
It's just there to let you know how the game mechanics work, and you could clearly see this was someone who wasn't familiar with a game controller and had never played Super Mario. He fumbled through and then actually got stuck. Could not get past a simple jump. Tried again and again. Gave up after a couple of minutes of futility.
Yes walkthrough writes play the whole game. And do so in a rush to get everything out before the game launches and the buzz does down
Like people had to solve all the puzzles in God Of War Ragnarok to write the guides
I know that Cuphead video spread far and wide but the Dark Souls series wouldn't be the most highly acclaimed series if reviewers could not finish
The Cuphead guy doesn't play games, he typically reports on the financial side of the industry which is entirely unrelated to reviews etc.
Seriously. This is a big fucking deal but people here don’t care because they wouldn’t be affected. Fuck these assholes.
