https://blog.fallible.net/it-breaks-a-village/
-
quoting one section that’s powerful even if you don’t care about Bevy or Rust, but the whole post is excellent:
> In software we have this strange position taking hold, that our work is as valueless as the output of an LLM. Not that LLM output is just as valuable, no, that we are of as little value as it. This sometimes gets communicated as "They're just as good as you!" which is a slight against the programmers being talked about, more than anything.
>
> Software is the outlier in how people culturally value LLM output. Game engines have a relationship to people outside of software.
>
> Nobody intentionally buys "AI assets" from online marketplaces. Nobody asks "AI artists" for commissions or collaboration. The people who follow "AI art" accounts are... "AI" boosters, for the most part. Some people who are caught up in the spectacle. "AI" works on steam instantly receive backlash, and are seeing an increasing amount of backlash over time.> Game Developers see "AI" as a liability, Players see "AI" output as asset-flip vapourware. When people hear that "AI" is part of a project, many of them lose trust in that project. This holds true even when it's "just" code. It's viewed as an abdication of responsibility, an abdication of care.
>
> People are consistently picking up on "AI" tells in video, writing, images, no matter the "improvements" in models. This is a matter of needing to filter out information from the world. "AI output" is noise, not signal, and in order to make human connections over a mediation layer like the internet you need to be able to filter out noise quickly. -
> Game Developers see "AI" as a liability, Players see "AI" output as asset-flip vapourware. When people hear that "AI" is part of a project, many of them lose trust in that project. This holds true even when it's "just" code. It's viewed as an abdication of responsibility, an abdication of care.
>
> People are consistently picking up on "AI" tells in video, writing, images, no matter the "improvements" in models. This is a matter of needing to filter out information from the world. "AI output" is noise, not signal, and in order to make human connections over a mediation layer like the internet you need to be able to filter out noise quickly.@zzt
Just code. Just the part that makes the whole thing work. Just that, no big deal. -
@zzt
Just code. Just the part that makes the whole thing work. Just that, no big deal.@ozzelot “it’s just code” I said, throwing a massive fucking tantrum and crybullying about witch hunts and harassment if I can’t fill the community with my horrid slop code
-
> Game Developers see "AI" as a liability, Players see "AI" output as asset-flip vapourware. When people hear that "AI" is part of a project, many of them lose trust in that project. This holds true even when it's "just" code. It's viewed as an abdication of responsibility, an abdication of care.
>
> People are consistently picking up on "AI" tells in video, writing, images, no matter the "improvements" in models. This is a matter of needing to filter out information from the world. "AI output" is noise, not signal, and in order to make human connections over a mediation layer like the internet you need to be able to filter out noise quickly.also, it’s important to point this out: Bevy went from an apparently anti-AI but in practice centrist policy to a policy that’s being presented as centrist but is in practice extremely pro-AI
if you wanted a worked example of why centrist AI policies are horrible, this is it
-
https://blog.fallible.net/it-breaks-a-village/
this is an extremely important read, even if you don’t care about the Rust game engine Bevy.
anti-AI policies are broadly popular, and pro-AI policies destroy communities. this article is an excellent summary of a project going from an apparent (but not actual) anti-AI stance to a pro-AI one, on the false pretenses that AI boosters were subject to harassment and witch hunts. those false pretenses are already common, and you’re going to see them a lot more soon because this is a playbook.
@zzt > [...] caustic, antisocial behaviour causes people who previously were valued in the space to leave. When these people have left, the behaviour of the persons whose caused them to leave becomes the new community norm.
I'm not personally involved with either Rust or Bevy but this is a great summary of a core issue that I've witnessed everywhere as soon as "AI" infestation started creeping in. Over the past year I've seen my favourite communities and hobby spaces collapse precisely because of this, even outside tech. It's heartbreaking, really.
Olivia Guest recently wrote an amazing article discussing this problem from a more general perspective: https://olivia.science/entryism/
-
also, it’s important to point this out: Bevy went from an apparently anti-AI but in practice centrist policy to a policy that’s being presented as centrist but is in practice extremely pro-AI
if you wanted a worked example of why centrist AI policies are horrible, this is it
@zzt It was fated to happen after one of the main developers made a super mega long post talking about how yes LLMs are bad but they're innevitable and you can't resist them so just use them and hope the governments regulate them in time I can buy you some claude tokens if you ask nicely
-
@zzt It was fated to happen after one of the main developers made a super mega long post talking about how yes LLMs are bad but they're innevitable and you can't resist them so just use them and hope the governments regulate them in time I can buy you some claude tokens if you ask nicely
-
@zzt It was fated to happen after one of the main developers made a super mega long post talking about how yes LLMs are bad but they're innevitable and you can't resist them so just use them and hope the governments regulate them in time I can buy you some claude tokens if you ask nicely
@witchgirls there were a bunch of bright red flags! the magic of the harassment/witch hunt accusation is it made talking about any of them incredibly difficult. “if you talk too loud about this you’ll be bringing harassment into the project” is a powerful deterrent
-
@zzt It was fated to happen after one of the main developers made a super mega long post talking about how yes LLMs are bad but they're innevitable and you can't resist them so just use them and hope the governments regulate them in time I can buy you some claude tokens if you ask nicely
@witchgirls @zzt If something is inevitable, no one needs to proselytize for it. No one needs to spread the good word about gravity, it just pulls things together. It's there with no one defending it.
LLMs are not a force of physics, and they are 100% evitable.
-
@zzt Seriously this post literally just tries to "look the first shot is free see for yourself" you
-
@witchgirls there were a bunch of bright red flags! the magic of the harassment/witch hunt accusation is it made talking about any of them incredibly difficult. “if you talk too loud about this you’ll be bringing harassment into the project” is a powerful deterrent
@zzt I was once accused by an LLM bro for using the term "tainted" because it was evoking christian puritan language and I was being just like them and it's so sad I don't realize it while pretending to be a progressive
-
@zzt Seriously this post literally just tries to "look the first shot is free see for yourself" you
@witchgirls holy fuck
as if a bunch of us haven’t been forced to use this garbage (the supposedly best version of it!) under threat of being fired
-
also, it’s important to point this out: Bevy went from an apparently anti-AI but in practice centrist policy to a policy that’s being presented as centrist but is in practice extremely pro-AI
if you wanted a worked example of why centrist AI policies are horrible, this is it
please keep this article in your back pocket for the next project that does a Bevy or a Debian and starts making broad gestures towards a supposedly centrist AI policy
it may or may not be too late for Bevy under its current leadership and community, but for any project that’s not too far gone, this article is a very effective warning of things to come
-
@zzt I was once accused by an LLM bro for using the term "tainted" because it was evoking christian puritan language and I was being just like them and it's so sad I don't realize it while pretending to be a progressive
@witchgirls
Good fucking God(Here I am much like the worshippers of Zeus, presumably. He did a lot of that.)
@zzt -
@witchgirls holy fuck
as if a bunch of us haven’t been forced to use this garbage (the supposedly best version of it!) under threat of being fired
@zzt Surely it wasn't a "frontier model", or you were prompting it wrong, or you were predisposed to not see how amazing it is because of it being forced on you, or you're just a silly luddite, or it actually didn't work for you but that doesn't matter because it does for me so whatever.
-
@zzt Seriously this post literally just tries to "look the first shot is free see for yourself" you
@witchgirls It reads like a drug pusher at the school gates.
-
@witchgirls
Good fucking God(Here I am much like the worshippers of Zeus, presumably. He did a lot of that.)
@zzt@ozzelot @witchgirls @zzt very broad experience in that field, maybe the best generalist out there
-
@zzt It was fated to happen after one of the main developers made a super mega long post talking about how yes LLMs are bad but they're innevitable and you can't resist them so just use them and hope the governments regulate them in time I can buy you some claude tokens if you ask nicely
@witchgirls wtf are claude tokens Lol
-
@witchgirls @zzt If something is inevitable, no one needs to proselytize for it. No one needs to spread the good word about gravity, it just pulls things together. It's there with no one defending it.
LLMs are not a force of physics, and they are 100% evitable.
@howtophil @witchgirls @zzt mhm many such examples --
if digital games or streaming are "the future" you wouldn't need to force them onto us, and constantly tell us it is, if capitalism was human nature you don't need to enforce it, if gender cant change you dont need to ban it, if gender roles are the natural state of things- you dont need to segregate, etc.
-
@zzt Surely it wasn't a "frontier model", or you were prompting it wrong, or you were predisposed to not see how amazing it is because of it being forced on you, or you're just a silly luddite, or it actually didn't work for you but that doesn't matter because it does for me so whatever.
@witchgirls @zzt I mean we learned about this in anti-drug awareness week.
FOMO: "They don't want you to know this, but you can do stuff with PDFs with this one weird trick."
Intimidation: "Buy ChatGPT tokens, or I will kidnap and starve your dog."
Dominance: "You will use the chatbot, if I see you doing stuff yourself, you will face me."
Bargaining: "I can quit when I want to. Here, how about this... You write a prompt to help me for class, and I'll stop after I turn it in."
Hazing: "If you don't write a prompt, you're not getting your pants back. Use AI or walk home in tighty whiteys."
Bandwagon: "We're all using it, and we're perfectly fine."
Sex Appeal: "Hot guys are prompt engineers. Help me, prompt daddy!"
(I can't believe I just wrote that... prompt daddy. FML.)
