That google-control article shines a big light on the problem. If all the companies are own by the same parent, they'll naturally follow the same strategy to maximise clicks.
Have I finally found the reason this why all recipe sites operate the same dysfunctional way??
What I got from his interviews is not that he disliked the GoL, it's just he disliked the GoL overshadowing everything else he did (basically, becoming the GoL guy). He personally didn't see much more interesting mathematics that could be done after answering basic questions like universality (although it's likely he wasn't aware of everything the community was up to). Also, it's clear he seemed to come to terms with it in his final interviews (including the second one you linked) :)
I've played around with several CAs and Conway's rules stands out to me as one of the most interesting still, for many reasons (like simplicity, interesting patterns, long lived structures).
Reminds me of Steve Paxton, an amazing dancer who passed away recently. He led a project called “Contact Improvisations”, which became a movement form called Contact Improvisation. He taught some classes and many others contributed. 50 years later, it’s still going strong. But, he didn’t embrace this role of “Contact Improv guy” that was really available to him. He just kept doing other stuff, even as this community exploded.
I think that’s partly the nature of pure researchers. They usually have something more interesting to them than what they got famous for, and they probably don’t want to lead an organization. This is different from BDFLs like Guido van Rossum and Rich Hickey. Neither type is good or bad, and I appreciate them all.
It's almost by definition that if you get popular for something, it is not the thing you're most interested in or best at - because you're an expert in the craft and for something to be popular it has to be at least somewhat approachable by non-experts.
Interesting idea. Could there be a market for pre-AI era content?
Or maybe it would be a combination of pre-AI content plus some extra barriers to entry for newer content that would increase the likelihood the content was generated by real people?
I'm in the camp where I want AI and automation to free people from drudgery in the hope that it will encourage the biggest HUMAN artwork renaissance ever in history.
I don't want AI to be at the forefront of all new media and artwork. That's a terrible outcome to me.
And honestly there's already too much "content" in the world and being produced every day, and it seems like every time we step further up the "content is easier to produce and deliver" ladder, it actually gets way more difficult to find much of value, and also more difficult for smaller artists to find an audience.
We see this on Steam where there are thousands of new game releases every week. You only ever hear of one or two. And it's almost never surprising which ones you hear about. Rarely you get an indie sensation out of nowhere, but that only usually happens when a big streamer showcases it.
Speaking of streamers, it's hard to find quality small streamers too. Twitch and YouTube are saturated with streams to watch but everyone gravitates to the biggest ones because there's just too much to see.
Everything is drowning in a sea of (mostly mediocre, honestly) content already, AI is going to make this problem much worse.
At least with human generated media, it's a person pursuing their dreams. Those thousands of games per week might not get noticed, but the person who made one of them might launch a career off their indie steam releases and eventually lead a team that makes the next Baldur's Gate 3 (substitute with whatever popular game you like)
I can't imagine the same with AI. Or actually, I can imagine much worse. The AI that generates 1000 games eventually gets bought by a company to replace half their staff and now a bunch of people are out of work and have a much harder uphill battle to pursue their dreams (assuming that working on games at that company was their dream)
I don't know. I am having a hard time seeing a better society growing out of the current AI boom.
> free people from drudgery in the hope that it will encourage the biggest HUMAN artwork renaissance ever in history.
This experiment has been run in most wealthy nations and the artwork renaissance didn't happen.
Most older people don't do arts/sciences when they retire from work.
From what I see of younger people that no longer have to work (for whatever reason) neither do younger people become artists given the opportunity.
Or look at what people of working age do with their free time in evenings or weekends after they've done their work for the week. Expect people freed from work to do more of the same as what they currently do in evenings/weekends: don't expect people will suddenly do something "productive".
You don’t want older folks to generate reams of good art for consumption. Let the youngsters who need to make money do that. And many artistically-oriented youngsters do create art in their off hours from work, at least out here. I don’t think they think of it as “production” though. Why does a bird sing?
What retirees often do, rather, is develop an artist’s eye for images, a musician’s ear for sounds, a philosopher’s perspective, a writer’s voice, etc.. This often involve a broader exposure/consumption of arts and studying art history. Sometimes producing actual art as well…but less for the final artistic product but instead to engage in the artistic process itself so as to develop that way of seeing/feeling/being an artist has. When the work-related chunk of the mind is wholly freed up for other pursuits, there is often such a bit-flip. And since it is a deepening appreciation and greater consumption, there is no risk of overproduction of art and the soul devolution that arises from hyper competitiveness in the marketplace.
Becoming an artist is difficult.
Sure, anyone can pick up a tool of their preference
and learn to noodle around.
Producing artwork sufficiently engaging to power a renaissance takes years of practice to mastery.
We think that artists appear out of nowhere,
fully formed,
an impression we get from how popularity and spread works.
Look under the surface,
read some biographies of artists,
and it turns out,
with few exceptions,
they all spend years going through education,
apprenticeships,
and generally poor visibility.
Many of the artists we respect now weren't known in their lifetimes.
The list includes
Vincent van Gogh,
Paul Cézanne,
Claude Monet,
Vivian Maier,
Emily Dickinson,
Edgar Allan Poe,
Jeff Buckley,
Robert Johnson,
you get the idea.
I'll go one further, though I expect to receive mockery for doing so: I think the internet as we conceive of it today is ultimately a failed experiment.
I think that society and humanity would be better off if the internet had remained a simple backbone for vetted organizations' official use. Turning the masses loose on it has effectively ruined so many aspects of our world that we can never get back, and I for one don't think that even the most lofty and oft-touted benefits of the internet are nearly as true as we pretend.
It's just another venue for the oldest of American traditions at this point: Snake Oil Sales.
I won't mock you, I get where you're coming from, but I think you're forgetting just how revolutionary many aspects of the internet have been. The ability to publish to a potentially global audience without a corporate mediator. Do commerce without physically going to a store or ordering over a phone. Access to information, culture and education beyond what can fit in one's local library. Bank without an ATM. Even just being able to communicate worldwide without long-distance charges (remember those) or an envelope and stamp. Even social media, which everyone hates, was a revolution in that it got people easily using the web to network and communicate en masse, whereas prior it was just people behind pseudonyms on niche forums. There is a real and tacit improvement in the quality of life for at least millions of people behind each of those.
Reducing the internet to only world-destroying negatives and writing off its positives as "snake oil" seems unnecessarily hyperbolic, as obvious as the negatives are. Although I suppose it's easier to accept the destruction of the internet if you believe that it was never worth anything to begin with. But I disagree that nothing of value is being lost. Much of value is being lost. That's what's tragic.
Humans will use whatever means available to us to spout bullshit, misinformation and peddle snake oil.
The Internet has just made it easier for us to communicate, in doing so it has made the bad easier, but it has also made the good easier too. And fortunately there's still a lot more good than bad.
So I totally disagree with you there, bettering communication only benefits our species overall.
Gay rights is a great example, we only got them because of the noise and ruckus, protests, parades, individuals being brave and coming out. It's easy to hate a type of person if you've never been exposed to or communicated with them. But sometimes all it took to change the opinion of a homophobic fuck was finding out their best friend, their child, their neighbour who helps out all the time, was gay. Then suddenly it clicks.
Though certainly the Internet is slightly at odds with our species; we didn't evolve to communicate in that way so it's not without its challenges.
The AI that generates 1000 games eventually gets bought by a company
That seems like only a temporary phenomenon. If we've got AI that can generate any games that people actually want to play then we don't need game companies at all. In the long run I don't see any company being able to build a moat around AI. It's a cat-and-mouse game at best!
I don't think regulation will achieve what they want. Nothing short of a war-on-drugs style blanket prohibition would work. And you can look there to see how ineffective that's been at keeping drugs off the streets.
Another example of this behavior. The war on drugs not working didn't stop alcohol companies from lobbying for it, any effect that suppresses compition is valuable and its not like OpenAI and the like will be paying for enforcement, you will be.
I'd be very, very surprised if OpenAI was successful in setting up a war-on-drugs style regime that simultaneously sets them up as one of the soul providers of AI (a guaranteed monopoly on AI in the US). One of the big reasons is that it would put the US at an extreme disadvantage, competitively speaking. OpenAI would not be able to hire every single AI developer, so all of that talent would leave the US for greener pastures.
>> If we've got AI that can generate any games that people actually want to play then we don't need game companies at all.
> Why do you think they are screaming about "the dangers of AI"?
Perhaps it's those of us who enjoy making games or are otherwise invested in producing content that are concerned about humanity being reduced to braindead consumers of the neverending LLM sludge, who scream the loudest.
Think how many game developers were able to realize their vision because Unity3D was accessible to them but raw C++ programming was not. We may see similar outcomes for other budding artists with the help of AI models. I'm quite excited!
I'm cautiously optimistic, but I also think about things like "Rebel Moon". When I was growing up, movies were constrained by their special effects budget... if some special effects "wizard" couldn't think of a way to make it look like Luke Skywalker got his hand cut off in a light saber battle, he didn't get his hand cut off in a light saber battle. Now, with CGI, the sky is the limit - what we see on screen is whatever the writer can dream up. But what we're getting is... pretty awful. It's almost as if the technical constraints actually forced the writers to focus on crafting a good story to make up for lack of special effects.
Except 'their vision' is practically homogeneous. I can't think even think of a dozen Unity games that broke the mould, and genuinely stand out, out of the many tens of thousands (?).
There's Genshin Impact, Pokemon Go, Superhot, Beat Saber, Monument Valley, Subnautica, Among Us, Rust, Cities:Skylines (maybe), Ori (maybe), COD:Mobile (maybe) and...?
> Except 'their vision' is practically homogeneous. I can't think even think of a dozen Unity games that broke the mould, and genuinely stand out, out of the many tens of thousands (?).
You could say the same about books.
Lowering the barriers of entry does mean more content will be generated and that content won't the same bar as having a middleman who was the arbiter of who gets published but at the same time, you'll likely get more hits and new developers because you getting more people swinging faster to test the market and hone their eye.
I am doubtful that there are very many people who hit a "Best Seller" 10/10 on their first try. You just used to not see it or ever be able to consume it because their audience was like 7 people at their local club.
Necropolis, Ziggurat... Imo the best games nowadays are often those that no one heard about. Popularity wasn't a good metric for a very long while. And thankfully games like "New World" and "Starfield" are helping a lot for general population to finally figure this out.
Angry birds, Slender: The Eight Pages, Kerbal Space Program, Plague Inc, The Room, Rust, Tabletop Simulator, Enter the Gungeon, Totally Accurate Battle Simulator, Clone Hero, Cuphead, Escape from Tarkov, Getting Over It with Bennett Foddy, Hollow Knight, Oxygen Not Included, Among Us, RimWorld, Subnautica, Magic: The Gathering Arena, Outer Wilds, Risk of Rain 2, Subnautica: Below Zero, Superliminal, Untitled Goose Game, Fall Guys, Raft, Slime Rancher, Firewatch, PolyBridge, Mini Metro, Luckslinger, Return of the Obra Dinn, 7 Days to Die, Cult of the Lamb, Punch Club.
Rimworld. Dyson Sphere Program. Cult of the Lamb. Escape from Tarkov. Furi. Getting over it with Bennett Foddy. Hollow Knight. Kerbal Space Program. Oxygen not included. Pillars of Eternity. Risk of Rain 2. Tyranny.
I'd say all of those do some major thing that makes them stand out.
> I'm in the camp where I want AI and automation to free people from drudgery in the hope that it will encourage the biggest HUMAN artwork renaissance ever in history.
That is, to put it bluntly, hoping for a technological solution to a social problem. It won't happen. Ever.
We absolutely, 100% DO NOT have the social or ideological framework necessary to "free people from drudgery." The only options are 1) be rich, 2) drudge, or 3) starve. Even a technology as fantastic as a Star Trek replicator won't really free us from that. If it enables anything, the only new option provided by replicators would be: 4) die from an atom bomb replicated by a nutjob.
Extra barriers! LOL. Everything I have every submitted written by me (a human) to HN, reddit and others in the past 12 months gets rejected as self-promotion or some other BS even though it is totally original technical content. I am totally over the hurdles to get anything I do noticed, and as I don't have social media it seems the future is to publish it anywhere and rely on others or AI to scrape it into a publishable story somewhere else at a future date. I feel for the moderator's dilemma, but I am also over the stupid hoop's humans have to jump.
Silly prediction: the only way to get guaranteed non-ai generated content will be to go to live performances of expert speakers. Kind of like going to the theater vs. TV and cinema or attending a live concert vs. listening to Spotify.
Same problem here - grew up in toxic friend, school, and social group environments where anything you revealed about yourself was almost certainly going to be weaponised against you at a later point. You pretty quickly learn to never divulge anything...
While this problem applies to everyone, it unfortunately affects younger brains FAR more than mature brains. I think Jonathan Haidt's work said kids shouldn't be having these kinds of technological interactions and prompts until at least the age of 15/16.
Has anyone found any 'solutions' when managing technology with their kids? A colleague of mine has just a blanket rule of no smart phones until they're 14 and then no social media such as tiktok. His kids seem to respect it because they now see how silly everyone looks on their smartphones the whole time (having not been indoctrinated during their early teens).
