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.
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.