Generative AI

A big BIG portion of it can be traced directly back to guys like Newt Gingrich who actively altered the working playbook to remove compromise from the process (and even more of it spun out of Reagan, double fuck that guy forever into the sun).
Yep. You can blame the beginning of the end—thanks to the Republican Party—on Nixon, Reagan, or Gingrich. They all have a compelling case.

This is infuriating.

 
I hate to sound like one of those "You can't trust the guburnmint" guys, but 80% of our problems can be traced back to the fact that Congress does not work. FWIW, I think only half of it is because they're lazy and don't care. The rest of it is systemic flaws in the Constitution and loopholes that create more gridlock.
It's actually amazing to think about how many problems in America are actually fixable (preventable) with term limits and age restrictions. If you're old enough for forced retirement at the widget factory, you can't be at our highest levels of government. Because fucking obviously.
 
There were a few hobby groups I was in over on Facebook that recently started using AI engagement boosters. Just random posts like "what was your favorite moment in the Star Trek movies" or something.

I dropped out of those groups so quickly.
 
"what was your favorite moment in the Star Trek movies" or something.
"That one time when they killed the sinister machine intelligence that was trying to corrupt or kill everything that stood against it as well as rewrite human history and turn all of he people into mindless drones."
 
Didn't Larian say a long time ago that they were planning to use generative AI for certain things? I don't think that's really news, unless they've changed -how- they're intending to use it.
 
I think Vincke just learned the hard way how despised AI is right now and how hard it is to explain acceptable AI from unacceptable. There's actually machine-learning options that can help with rendering and remove some of PITA steps for animation. Buuuut it also sounds like Vincke doesn't understand how even using it to rough out ideas is abhorrent to consumers right now. I get what he's getting at here but if I were in the room with him I'd be like dude, just don't use it at all, it's the only way to be safe. From his follow-up:

"Holy fuck guys we’re not "pushing hard" for or replacing concept artists with AI. We have a team of 72 artists of which 23 are concept artists and we are hiring more. The art they create is original and I’m very proud of what they do. I was asked explicitly about concept art and our use of Gen AI. I answered that we use it to explore things. I didn’t say we use it to develop concept art. The artists do that. And they are indeed world class artists. We use AI tools to explore references, just like we use google and art books. At the very early ideation stages we use it as a rough outline for composition which we replace with original concept art. There is no comparison. I talked about how we use ML here if you would like to know more. We've hired creatives for their talent, not for their ability to do what a machine suggests, but they can experiment with these tools to make their lives easier."
 
That's what I thought. They also talked about using AI to do things like bug-hunt early models and stuff. From what I can TELL, Larian is basically the only company on earth using AI correctly and ethically, as much as one can use AI ethically at all. Sad to see them get crucified over it by reactionary idiots that have no comprehension skills.
 
No, they're using it to generate temp artwork and concept art - all things artists would be hired to do in the past. It's like a way of slowly getting consumers used to the idea of A.I. generating content. Vincke is just mad people are calling him out on his bullshit and he's trying to walk it back. Others are also using this sudden bad press as a reason to come out about their hiring practices which also aren't particularly ethical. And I think it would be naive to expect none of this A.I. generated conceptual art won't make it into a final game at some point.
 
The Larian thing is so weird. It's not enough to stop me from buying their next game, but to me, any AI use is too much.

They're using it for internal presentations, to generate ideas/concept art, and for placeholder/temp content. How much money/time are you really saving? Someone in the industry just released a package of free assets so devs don't need to use AI assets.

Larian also made an ungodly sum of money on BG3. It can't possibly be worth the PR hit.
 
Parsing out Swen's second comment, it truly feels like HE DOESN'T UNDERSTAND why people are mad, and that is something we have to eviscerate every single executive who doesn't get it UNTIL THEY DO. Nobody gets a free pass. I love Larian. BG3 is the only game i played in 2025. But if they're using generative AI at all, for concept art or anything like that, it's a no go for me. Bug hunting, file cleanup, that shit existed before generative AI (which is a huge problem for "real" AI companies - these shitfuckers ruined the term for everyone, it's meaningless now.) Swen's always seemed like a good guy but you can't get mad if you stick your dick in a lion's mouth and it bites it off.

It's not worth the PR hit.

For example, Publisher's Weekly, the "most trusted" source for publishers and authors until now, associated with the dreaded Kirkus Review process (BTW, FUCK Kirkus, it's pay to play, and they charge an insane amount of money for a mediocre review just to get you in front of librarians, they can eat an entire bag of shit) just offered an "AI for Authors" course and they are being FUCKING SHREDDED on Bluesky. Ratio'd to DEATH. Someone should get fired for it, and the presenter is going to have to change his name and go into hiding. Because Publisher's Weekly just made it so every article, every review, will now be questioned as AI for as long as the publication exists. This is a potential company ender. All for a quick hit of blood money. And mind, this is as dumb, if not dumber, than Swen's comments, because literally EVERY FUCKING AUTHOR ON EARTH had their work stolen by AI companies. Offering an AI course to authors is like offering to take a shit in our mouths.
 
Okay, I'm going to go back to my point again because maybe I'm the one misunderstanding what's happening here. Didn't he specifically say they are NOT using AI to generate any actual art? The last line of his post is weird and confusing, but MY understanding (again, maybe I'm wrong here) was that this was more like using AI tools to do things similar to Googling 'what do medieval swords look like?' and using the answer as reference for your work. IE - ACTUAL AI tools. Is that not what they're doing? Is his post saying they're using AI to create/mine existing art first and then doing more art on their own later?
 
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