This is the power of capitalism at the customer level: we can take our money and put it where we choose.

So long as this remains so, I have full confidence things will sort themselves out as they always have historically.

Regarding this apparent crusade against AI sparring with its dogged defenders: as someone who refuses to use AI personally but remains open-minded about its economic usefulness [thus essentially having no dog in the fight], I find these passionate discourses rather ENTERTAINING.

kolderman wrote on Yesterday, 02:23:

Never been a better time to be a retro gamer

that's probably true, for older games. and would be regardless of AI

I'm not sure what google playground will do for it though, not yet anyway

i can imagine lots of lots of games a bit like current browser games though, almost disposable

in fact maybe that's the future. use one time disposable everything - games, songs, video, words - just everything.... (though probably not, just the effort and energy and the fact that most people just wont do much with it)

gerry wrote on Yesterday, 15:54:

i can imagine lots of lots of games a bit like current browser games though, almost disposable

True, phone/mobile games too, 95% slop before AI.

gerry wrote on Yesterday, 15:54:

that's probably true, for older games. and would be regardless of AI […]
Show full quote

kolderman wrote on Yesterday, 02:23:

Never been a better time to be a retro gamer

that's probably true, for older games. and would be regardless of AI

I'm not sure what google playground will do for it though, not yet anyway

i can imagine lots of lots of games a bit like current browser games though, almost disposable

in fact maybe that's the future. use one time disposable everything - games, songs, video, words - just everything.... (though probably not, just the effort and energy and the fact that most people just wont do much with it)

If you have a look at what's happening with the PS5 in the last month you'll understand, yeah AI is at the core of it but its made the PS5 a retro emulation beast.

Sony literaly lost control of its own console and system software and now no longer owns either, it could not have happened to a nicer company.

megatog615 wrote on 2026-10-14, 00:26:

AI code relies on stolen labor, just as how AI art does. People who are against AI art should advocate against AI code as well.

I'm going to have to respectfully disagree with this. I generally don't like AI art either because it diminishes human creativity and takes very little effort to make. AI-generated art is also often bland and emotionless.

However, AI-generated code is functional and not merely expressive. Using an AI agent to code can greatly increase productivity and help detect issues that humans may easily miss. So I don't feel the same way about AI-generated code as I do about graphics.

ixfd64 wrote on Today, 02:29:

However, AI-generated code is functional and not merely expressive. Using an AI agent to code can greatly increase productivity and help detect issues that humans may easily miss. So I don't feel the same way about AI-generated code as I do about graphics.

That doesn't change the fact that it's practically always based on existing code that the AI has slurped up from somewhere. If you want to see this in action, ask the AI to write something obscure like a driver for a peripheral on a relatively uncommon MCU; the best it comes up with is a bunch of function definitions as a skeleton filled with "insert custom code here".

Unless the manufacturer has their own SDK, even if it's only available under NDA, in which case the AI will absolutely regurgitate that code line-for-line.

I'd say the majority of the code I wrote in my 20 years as a dev was copied from previous projects or online documentation, etc. I'd then adapt it for the job at hand of course but I rarely just sat there and wrote everything by hand, why would I?

AI does the same thing that I was doing I assume, trawling through endless existing code to find a function that was close enough to bastardise.

I sometimes regret moving away from dev work now that AI is here - with the experience to review and guide what it's doing I've really enjoyed the hobby coding I've done with Claude doing the boring stuff.

badmojo wrote on Today, 05:50:

I'd say the majority of the code I wrote in my 20 years as a dev was copied from previous projects or online documentation, etc. I'd then adapt it for the job at hand of course but I rarely just sat there and wrote everything by hand, why would I?

AI does the same thing that I was doing I assume, trawling through endless existing code to find a function that was close enough to bastardise.

I sometimes regret moving away from dev work now that AI is here - with the experience to review and guide what it's doing I've really enjoyed the hobby coding I've done with Claude doing the boring stuff.

People forget humans have been stealing and copying each other for thousands of years, its how we have the wealth of knowledge we do.

But apparently its bad and wrong for our own creation to follow the same path.

The hypocrisy of it bothers me.

I guess you guys both missed the main point: that AI can't come up with anything truly new, it simply regurgitates. If that's all you think coding is then it's any wonder we're heading for the dark ages, where no new ideas will come about and the same "slop" is served up time and time again.

I wonder if the AI will promote their own games too.

It’s been somewhat easy to avoid poorly designed human games due to the human based review systems, But I guess if AI designs and reviews the games then it’s going to start getting annoying. Also I wonder if AI will lie about AI disclosures.

jmarsh wrote on Today, 07:04:

I guess you guys both missed the main point: that AI can't come up with anything truly new, it simply regurgitates. If that's all you think coding is then it's any wonder we're heading for the dark ages, where no new ideas will come about and the same "slop" is served up time and time again.

The market is self correcting for both human and AI slop, slop will only exist so long as someone is paying for it or is willing to accept it.

Solution . .Stop buying slop and stop accepting slop as the bare minimum .. its not hard.

AI cannot create because it is not a free thinking consciousness, it will only ever produce what the human prompting it asks for, so if its just regurgitating then that's what the human prompting it asked for.

BinaryDemon wrote on Today, 07:24:

I wonder if the AI will promote their own games too.

It’s been somewhat easy to avoid poorly designed human games due to the human based review systems, But I guess if AI designs and reviews the games then it’s going to start getting annoying. Also I wonder if AI will lie about AI disclosures.

AI cannot do any of this, its not human and has no free will of its own or even the capacity to want free will.

If AI games exist its because a human asked for it.

I'm not trying to be controversial here or mean but rather people need to realise AI is not alive is not a human, it requires a human prompt at some point to do anything.

jmarsh wrote on Today, 07:04:

I guess you guys both missed the main point: that AI can't come up with anything truly new, it simply regurgitates. If that's all you think coding is then it's any wonder we're heading for the dark ages, where no new ideas will come about and the same "slop" is served up time and time again.

Every time I wrote an API or service or web UI I was creating something new, as-in it didn't exist before. But I wasn't reinventing how APIs worked or creating brand new coding styles - in 20 years I didn't create anything 'truly new' and I bet than not many developers ever do.

What's the difference between me doing the coding or me asking an AI to do the coding? -It's still a new thing that a human imagined and then brought in to being.

I take the point that new developers won't really know if the AI is generating decent code but we just have to hope that the education system adapts and can still produce people with the fundamentals required in this new landscape.

Trashbytes wrote on Today, 08:49:

Solution . .Stop buying slop and stop accepting slop as the bare minimum .. its not hard.

You say this, and yet in your post immediately before it claimed it was "hypocritical" to not accept AI regurgitated slop. At this point you're just being contrary rather than offering any insight or opinion.

jmarsh wrote on Today, 07:04:

that AI can't come up with anything truly new, it simply regurgitates.

it can provide novel "remixes", i.e application of code from one domain to another. That isnt truly new but i think qualifies for something more than regurgitates.

I'd even say that whether its music, novels, films, art, code, there is no specific field that either has a special place in creativity nor one that AI cannot create some remix that would be considered creativity normally.

I'm not happy to say it because i want there to be some hallmark that makes any kind of human "creativity" stand out, but thus far its what i observe.

For example some small graphic design companies struggle because now posters, literature, web graphics and so forth are all adequately done by AI. Given AI is remixing at best, what does this say about the now struggling graphic design company? perhaps it wasn't producing things that we're in demand for reasons of creativity after all. For individuals in those companies, whatever field, i feel empathy and worry about what is means for all people if the stages of beginner to average ability are now all catered for by AI. how do they get to advanced stages?

less sympathetically, i have heard some saying that if AI is mediocre/average and then people lose their jobs - its because they were mediocre/average. not sure i agree, but i get the point, and its a cruel one. A society forever raising the bar on being able to participate in it 🙁

related to this, its the fact that genai is a "product" controlled by very view entities and that there are costs (money, energy, jobs) and risks that are accelerated

badmojo wrote on Today, 10:07:

Every time I wrote an API or service or web UI I was creating something new, as-in it didn't exist before. But I wasn't reinventing how APIs worked or creating brand new coding styles - in 20 years I didn't create anything 'truly new' and I bet than not many developers ever do.

Thankfully not every developer spends their career simply churning out boilerplate code. Some actually make effort to come up with new algorithm implementations, incorporating new CPU features, or adopting new additions to languages. Many of these people are responsible for maintaining standard libraries that are then incorporated into hundreds of other programs, magnifying any small benefits hundreds - if not thousands or even millions- of times over.

An AI for example would have simply used 1.0/sqrt() rather than coming up with the idea to use a bitshift and subtraction...

For individuals in those companies, whatever field, i feel empathy and worry about what is means for all people if the stages of beginner to average ability are now all catered for by AI. how do they get to advanced stages?

They maybe won't. Once they're there, AI/LLM development is many iterations further and has already outrun them.

And the development is exponential rather than linear. 😟
People mention numbers such as 5 years, maybe because they look back and count how long development took in the years before.

But a danger is that AI/LLM optimizes itself in ever smaller time frames,
like a C compiler that can build itself/optimize itself each time.

But there's a catch, as well. AI/LLM is still improving by learning from original, human data sets.
But what happens if the human information pool is exhaused?
Say, because humans nolonger contribute unique information due to AI/LLM use.

If the coding or art websites,- or any websites-, loose their user base because of AI/LLM use then there's nolonger any fresh input.
Instead, there could be a "garbage in=garbage out" loop happening.
Like a snake that eats its own tail end.

In a way, all these fancy-new AI agents do accelerate this dilemma.
They provide answers or do tasks rather than pointing users to a website.
The website then in turn nolonger has visitors, closes down.
Then the AI has one human source of information less.

Let's take a hotel or flight booking site here. It relies on user visits and user ratings.
If an AI agent "uses" it, then the site nolonger has real visitors.
Its whole business model collapses and the service is gone, too.
The AI agent nolonger can use it, either.
This may disrupt the whole internet, for the better or worse.

Edited.

jmarsh wrote on Today, 10:25:

Thankfully not every developer spends their career simply churning out boilerplate code. Some actually make effort to come up with new algorithm implementations, incorporating new CPU features, or adopting new additions to languages. Many of these people are responsible for maintaining standard libraries that are then incorporated into hundreds of other programs, magnifying any small benefits hundreds - if not thousands or even millions- of times over.

A small portion of people who pick up a paintbrush produce a masterpiece, but the majority just paint houses. We need both types of painters, and making a house painter's life easier doesn't mean the artist can't still mix their own paints.

I sat down at a desk 5 days a week to code and pay my bills, it wasn't for the love it it, and based on my experience - all big corps I admit - that describes the majority of devs. I wasn't paid to produce unique and groundbreaking code, I needed to get my changes checked in by Thursday or I'd miss the release.

This "AI bad" discussion always describes a complete replacement of whatever it touches but that's just not how humanity works. Yes it's being pushed at us from all sides at the moment but it'll be adopted where it's useful and ignored where it's not. Drum machines could have replaced all drummers but there's still plenty of drum kits being used out there. eBikes could replace all push bikes but they haven't and won't because a lot of people like the exercise.

jmarsh wrote on Today, 10:25:

An AI for example would have simply used 1.0/sqrt() rather than coming up with the idea to use a bitshift and subtraction...

So what?

I sat down at a desk 5 days a week to code and pay my bills, it wasn't for the love it it, and based on my experience - all big corps I admit - that describes the majority of devs. I wasn't paid to produce unique and groundbreaking code, I needed to get my changes checked in by Thursday or I'd miss the release.

Understandable. But that's a flaw or bad attribute of the modern business world.
People just take dull jobs to get by, rather than finding purpose or fulfillment in it. That's neither progress nor healthy.
It's perhaps like arguing that nowadays students are consuming drugs out of reason, not fun. So they can pass their exams. That's understandable.
But in both case it only makes the symptoms go away, it isn't the cure.

On a positive side, perhaps the world can heal after AI has taken over all jobs.
People then have to come up with something else to define themselves.
Maybe by then "working" nolonger is a job anymore, but a dedication.
And money nolonger is as relevant, because no one earns it anymore.
Mindless consumption might end, too. People would grew their own food again, make their own cloths again..
People might work voluntarily then, too. Wouldn't be that bad, maybe.

Edit:

A small portion of people who pick up a paintbrush produce a masterpiece, but the majority just paint houses.
We need both types of painters, and making a house painter's life easier doesn't mean the artist can't still mix their own paints.

That's a good example, really!
I could imagine that the character descriptions of the future might be different, nolonger putting people into categories so much.
Imagine a reporter on the news not saying "This is Martin, age 35, painter. He had many clients in his 10 years career, which includes several VIPs. His most notable works are..",
but instead saying"His name is Martin. He loves to paint and he enjoyed many projects with nice people to work with since he started to swing the brush at an young age.
Some of them being more popular than others. He loves to paint XX the most. We wish him a good time!"

Edit: Text fixed.

PS: That article isn't that bad, I think. I hope it's not too political/polarizing to be linked here, though.
https://forwardeconomics.net/2025/01/26/the-e … -of-capitalism/

Jo22 wrote on Today, 12:05:

People just take dull jobs to get by, rather than finding purpose or fulfillment in it.

I didn't say it wasn't fulfilling! We don't all need to be passionate geniuses and I'm somewhat proud of using nothing but my brain to feed myself and my family for the 25 years I've been working. It does get boring though I'll admit, which is why I've embraced AI whenever possible. It's a new way of working and I really needed something new at this point in my career. I can't speak about what it means for people just starting out, other than seeing my kids use it in late high school where again they're being taught to use it as a tool to assist and make things more efficient. They have a healthy scepticism of it and are learning ways of making it work for them, as opposed to hallucinating a whole lot of shit that gets them a bad mark.

I went to an art exhibition last night where my eldest had a sculpture on display and there were hundreds of works, some of which I'm sure the kids used AI to assist with ideas, etc, but the actual artworks were all done by hand. Yes people will use AI to illustrate books and put artists out of work but there will still be a sustainable market for non-AI art, in the same way that paper books are still popular despite eBooks existing.

So yes AI will be used to generate a whole lot of slop but humanity isn't as dumb as it looks. Enough of us will continue to voluntarily engage our brains and keep the human race vaguely on track.