Coding assistants
category: code [glöplog]
*impostor
Let's continue the AI code generation discussion here, so the Revision thread can be about Revision things.
Opinions seem to range from "Everything should be allowed - AI is just another tool in the toolbox" to "If you as much as talk to an LLM while working on a demo, you should be banned from even visiting a demoparty ever again".
Call me naive, but I am confident that we can find a reasonable middle ground that will allow us to continue having fun making and watching demos.
Opinions seem to range from "Everything should be allowed - AI is just another tool in the toolbox" to "If you as much as talk to an LLM while working on a demo, you should be banned from even visiting a demoparty ever again".
Call me naive, but I am confident that we can find a reasonable middle ground that will allow us to continue having fun making and watching demos.
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That discussion started over there because the Anti-AI rules are hotly debated even in their team. :)Let's continue the AI code generation discussion here, so the Revision thread can be about Revision things.
As for middle ground... There seems to be quite a fundamental difference in letting AI assistants do boring boilerplate coding gruntwork for you... and having them generate audiovisual assets for your demo.
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There seems to be quite a fundamental difference in letting AI assistants do boring boilerplate coding gruntwork for you... and having them generate audiovisual assets for your demo.
Completely agree. This is one of the nuances that compo rules should take into account.
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There seems to be quite a fundamental difference in letting AI assistants do boring boilerplate coding gruntwork for you...
Interesting. Best is when you administer all the boring coding gruntwork to AI and go with Unreal Engine or something. Right? Aren't you saying that, or at least going there? In that case, let's then admit that the demoscene is not really about "the art of code", it's about the art of audiovisual/motion design. And that (naive) conclusion was derived from what a true oldskool master coder had to say.
No.
My opinion, not that anyone asked for it or cares, is that it's a tool. We've always had tools that help do some stuff, and it's been obvious when they were used.
But in the hands of someone who really knows how to use the tools, the results have been amazing.
There's SO MUCH generated garbage out there right now, I don't even know what good use of these generators look like. Probably something that doesn't look like it's been generated.
When the bubble is gone, the tools still don't go anywhere; there's no going back to the "good old days". What the new normal with regards to generative tools looks like, probably nobody knows.
But in the hands of someone who really knows how to use the tools, the results have been amazing.
There's SO MUCH generated garbage out there right now, I don't even know what good use of these generators look like. Probably something that doesn't look like it's been generated.
When the bubble is gone, the tools still don't go anywhere; there's no going back to the "good old days". What the new normal with regards to generative tools looks like, probably nobody knows.
For some more nuance: "AI is _EXCELLENT_ at solving solved problems", as a scener i keep in high regard so elegantly put it over on CSDb.
It won't generate the next dot or rotozoomer record for you - pushing the envelope is still something that requires human ingenuity.
It won't generate the next dot or rotozoomer record for you - pushing the envelope is still something that requires human ingenuity.
What would be nice is to have that power on my computer and in the hands of the community just like the "old tools" were instead of as a cloud service which charges actual money for each use and which retains all the distribution and modification power for a corporation which couldn't care less about freedom, and which provides the service without any remuneration to the creators who supplied it with source data.
I second what @fizzer said.
You’re being too generous. It’s not that they don’t care about freedom, they detest it.
The endgame of this “tool” is to perform deskilling of people on a level and depth yet unseen. One final big move towards total control and enslavement.
If you (whoever “you” are) consider me and people like me boring and irritating that’s OK. I should be boring and irritating, that’s kinda the whole point. But if you fail to understand the importance of that single sentence paragraph above this one, we all (as humanity) have a really BIG problem.
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corporation which couldn't care less about freedom
You’re being too generous. It’s not that they don’t care about freedom, they detest it.
The endgame of this “tool” is to perform deskilling of people on a level and depth yet unseen. One final big move towards total control and enslavement.
If you (whoever “you” are) consider me and people like me boring and irritating that’s OK. I should be boring and irritating, that’s kinda the whole point. But if you fail to understand the importance of that single sentence paragraph above this one, we all (as humanity) have a really BIG problem.
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Let's continue the AI code generation discussion here, so the Revision thread can be about Revision things.
Opinions seem to range from "Everything should be allowed - AI is just another tool in the toolbox" to "If you as much as talk to an LLM while working on a demo, you should be banned from even visiting a demoparty ever again".
Call me naive, but I am confident that we can find a reasonable middle ground that will allow us to continue having fun making and watching demos.
The thing is, some people truly do believe the second approach. In that if a LLM is used in any form, the demo and demogroup must be banned. Or at least detested at the bare minimum. It truly is to them a political/ideological approach worthy enough to stand on.
Just look what happened to GZDoom. Coder who genuinely knows how to code in the first place tried a LLM for the first time, instantly shunned by community permanently, due to the community believing LLMs infringe on the GPL.
seriously, there is quantitative evidence that even great programmers are less effective with LLM support, also please tell me one sane reason, from the expert's perspective, to accept the drawbacks GenAI has:
* internet is flooded with slop & crawlers
* expensive video cards & RAM due to datacenter demands, heating the planet in the process
* AI enables underperformers to be relevant without effort while increasing effort required for actual performers to maintain relevance <-- most important point
* internet is flooded with slop & crawlers
* expensive video cards & RAM due to datacenter demands, heating the planet in the process
* AI enables underperformers to be relevant without effort while increasing effort required for actual performers to maintain relevance <-- most important point
tbh, the entire discussion highlights that most people seem to have very poor metrics for the quality of information they're presented with
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What would be nice is to have that power on my computer and in the hands of the community just like the "old tools" were instead of as a cloud service which charges actual money for each use and which retains all the distribution and modification power for a corporation which couldn't care less about freedom, and which provides the service without any remuneration to the creators who supplied it with source data.
There are free open source tools and free open weights models that one can run locally on a completely airgapped machine. Hardware required is comparable to just a good gaming PC. The whole experience is lagging behind commercial cloud solutions by roughly 6-12 month, and is already very much practical.
But given that it's all very new and is an experimental exploratory stage, it's a bit tricky to set up properly, and requires quite a lot of wide range of domains expertise to figure out even the basics. It is still rather far from "i clicked this button, it made a demo". Although when it is already set up it is at the stage where my tiny laptop's integrated GPU can create a single-html-page-fullscreen-shader-canvas complex SDF scene with complex lighting and multiple objects from just a single simple sentence prompt within a couple of minutes (it used to be a smoke test that all commercial models failed miserably, now not even free open weights ones running locally pass).
If people want to use LLMs for coding, let them. The demoscene has always been about challenges, and making something good using LLM generated code sounds like a really tricky one.
I absolutely despise it being used for beautiful code or audiovisual art.
And the meaning of art is different for different people - for a lot of people in demoscene, code is art.
My issues with the data collection are related to the AI usage outside of what we are playing around with.
About assistance - if it's good enough eventually, it will feel dehumanizing. I'm already facing some people who are running their thoughts thru AI before thinking.
And the meaning of art is different for different people - for a lot of people in demoscene, code is art.
My issues with the data collection are related to the AI usage outside of what we are playing around with.
About assistance - if it's good enough eventually, it will feel dehumanizing. I'm already facing some people who are running their thoughts thru AI before thinking.
What about tooling, I am using Gen AI to make different tools, and it's taken something that's often boring to being quite fun. The AI generated code meets the objective of the tool, even if it is often ugly.
