Coding assistants
category: code [glöplog]
Blueberry, you're trying to find a too easy way out - for coders to stay in their comfort zone and reserve possible criticism or cancellation attempts to the other domains.
But it's the critics who are wrong. We have this process of voting to sort out what is liked or not liked or controversial or boring. That's totally sufficient.
What's happening here is that some people advocate to the restrict what is acceptable in a creative process, and to stay safe in THEIR respective comfort bubble, of course. The tools are already in toolboxes of every department. The issue will sort out itself, but we can also have fun exposing and subverting the vice squad.
But it's the critics who are wrong. We have this process of voting to sort out what is liked or not liked or controversial or boring. That's totally sufficient.
What's happening here is that some people advocate to the restrict what is acceptable in a creative process, and to stay safe in THEIR respective comfort bubble, of course. The tools are already in toolboxes of every department. The issue will sort out itself, but we can also have fun exposing and subverting the vice squad.
@NR
Quoting me, you left out "...as we know it..." from the very midst of the quote.
Setting aside the fact that quotes sholudn't be messed with in that way, I need to say that what you threw out is crucial.
"As we know it".
When people go for the early photography vs. painting situation (which is completely wrong imho, but it doesn't matter for this case) they say "photography did not make painting obsolete". And it didn't. It made painting AS PEOPLE KNEW IT obsolete. Same applies here.
Quoting me, you left out "...as we know it..." from the very midst of the quote.
Setting aside the fact that quotes sholudn't be messed with in that way, I need to say that what you threw out is crucial.
"As we know it".
When people go for the early photography vs. painting situation (which is completely wrong imho, but it doesn't matter for this case) they say "photography did not make painting obsolete". And it didn't. It made painting AS PEOPLE KNEW IT obsolete. Same applies here.
Ofc it's easier to be extreme here:
Option A) go all-in with AI (genAI, vibe code full demo etc..),
Option B) go purist way 100% AI-free.
The grey zone is most difficult to discuss and reason about - and if you go gray, how do you control/enforce the balance blueberry is talking about.
Option A) go all-in with AI (genAI, vibe code full demo etc..),
Option B) go purist way 100% AI-free.
The grey zone is most difficult to discuss and reason about - and if you go gray, how do you control/enforce the balance blueberry is talking about.
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What's happening here is that some people advocate to the restrict what is acceptable in a creative process, and to stay safe in THEIR respective comfort bubble
To me, saying this equals to dissing 100m runners for disagreeing with biomechanical body enhancements "because they want to stay in their comfort bubble".
Or criticizing ban on earbuds at a quiz game. Saying it's because current participants "want to stay in their comfort bubble".
And, by the way, I find it funny when people mechanically use "comfort zone/bubble" as something intrinsically negative, a curse word almost. See, this whole community (as most human communities) is one comfort bubble. Nothing wrong with that.
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The grey zone is most difficult to discuss and reason about
That's right. That's why I said that perhaps "AI makes the demoscene as we know it obsolete." Because grey won't cut it, and black or white are quickly becoming impossible.
tomkh, there is only one extreme here. It's not about "all in", and I wouldn't use AI for anything in coding. But there's a huge difference in advocating in favour of one's own comfort zone, and trying to restrict others in their process. That's the level of abstraction that is totally missing in this discussion.
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Ofc it's easier to be extreme here:
Option A) go all-in with AI (genAI, vibe code full demo etc..),
Option B) go purist way 100% AI-free.
The grey zone is most difficult to discuss and reason about - and if you go gray, how do you control/enforce the balance blueberry is talking about.
Disassemble every single binary for proof? Happens for copyright infringment all the time.
One thing to bear in mind imho:
There's a possibility that in near future the only way to detect LLM usage in a piece of text, code, whatever, will be to deploy an LLM to the task. So the "ethical" reasoning for AI non-usage goes out the window in this case.
There's a possibility that in near future the only way to detect LLM usage in a piece of text, code, whatever, will be to deploy an LLM to the task. So the "ethical" reasoning for AI non-usage goes out the window in this case.
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tomkh, there is only one extreme here. It's not about "all in", and I wouldn't use AI for anything in coding. But there's a huge difference in advocating in favour of one's own comfort zone, and trying to restrict others in their process. That's the level of abstraction that is totally missing in this discussion.
As I said before, politically, some people simply do not give a shit and to them the mere existance of LLMs is enough to make a stand to not worry about restricting others. Its their moral standards, or the highway.
Dear 4gentE, you got this totally wrong. For me a comfort zone is immensely positive. I am doing scene just for that, and nothing else.
Separate person and statement, opinion and observation. Things can go very smoothly then.
It's important to recognize that others might have requirements which differ from one's own. Let "slop" expose itself, and there's fun for everybody.
Separate person and statement, opinion and observation. Things can go very smoothly then.
It's important to recognize that others might have requirements which differ from one's own. Let "slop" expose itself, and there's fun for everybody.
@bifat:
I get it now. Thanks.
I get it now. Thanks.
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One such loosening could be to say that AI content is prohibited insofar as it substitutes for a creative process. This will still basically rule out graphics and music. As it applies to code, it will rule out using it for effect code, design, optimizations, basically all of the "beautiful" code, whereas it would allow things like boilerplate, format conversions, API usage and the like.
Blueberry, you made a great point here. I think this points at the long-standing truth about demos that when you watch a demo you are not seeing the code at all. Experienced coders can guess how an effect works and they can tell that something is faked, but the code itself is not what is being demonstrated. This is why the code is less important than other things when it comes to demo quality.
Also, if the slop becomes a big problem i.e. too many entries due to low barrier of entry, I would guess that the solution would be to introduce preselection for demo compos.
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As I said before, politically, some people simply do not give a shit and to them the mere existance of LLMs is enough to make a stand to not worry about restricting others. Its their moral standards, or the highway.
You paint this thing one-sidedly. But I get it, you've obviously faced some sort of aggression.
What I want to say is that "the highway" goes both ways. Meaning that there are folks who are willing to hit the highway themselves if AI continues to penetrate the scene, and if the scene agrees to it.
So how do we deal with this? Is it a "majority vote", or what? Things cannot stay like this, I don't think the scene can survive like that, and I think people feel that, that's why there's so much drama.
There's no point in accusing individuals of enforcing their moral standards, because you as an individual have your own moral standards, right? What counts are the SCENE STANDARDS, whatever they are, but they have to be DEFINED.
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The scene as we know it. :DThings cannot stay like this, I don't think the scene can survive like that
What's the worst that can happen? A split to 2 or 3 scenes with different stances on the issue?
What I considered "fair competition" was never hurt elsewhere as much as in this scene, but in the very long run I've grown to enjoy that. The standard is that it's a playground for ideas and technology, including codices which get renegotiated, subverted, cheated on, go in and out of fashion, and in this process of pushing boundaries every standard gets contested and pushed as well. Something to consider if we take this cultural heritage thing seriously. :-)
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This is why the code is less important than other things when it comes to demo quality.
I'm not so sure about it. It all depends on the target audience and what is being presented. It's true that there is stagnation in code department for years already and focus is more on artistic side (at least for high end demos).
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the "beautiful" code, whereas it would allow things like boilerplate
Same thing is true for GenAI. The times where genAI was just end2end, text2image, text2audio etc..are long gone. Now it's all part of a bigger tool chain, even professional ones. You can argue that "beautiful" part of creation is a pencil sketch or pure melody + chord progression, composition structure, while the boring part is creating mesh/textures, or in case of audio producing it (instrumental arrangement, mastering). But now you can actually use genAI at virtually any stage you want (for concepting too), and whatever you think is boring for you. Going back to code, maybe some ppl love undocumented API quirks.
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I'm not so sure about it. It all depends on the target audience and what is being presented. It's true that there is stagnation in code department for years already and focus is more on artistic side (at least for high end demos).
I think that the point was that code is not the output of demos. Code is the input. Audiovisuals are the output. You don't see code in a finished prod like Cypher from Matrix. Of course, code can be abstractly appreciated when the size and/or hardware restrictions give some prod additional context.
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Now it's all part of a bigger tool chain, even professional ones.
Ah You mean like that "wonderful" Coca Cola Christmas commercial? Wow, that was really "professional".
it's all about craftmanship against productivity.
AI will be used, and forced to be used, because people believe in a never-ending chase for optimisation and productivity.
As far as I'm concerned, people should focus on having slow, crafty hobbies, with style and attitude; this is real counterculture.
AI will be used, and forced to be used, because people believe in a never-ending chase for optimisation and productivity.
As far as I'm concerned, people should focus on having slow, crafty hobbies, with style and attitude; this is real counterculture.
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Seconded.We have this process of voting to sort out what is liked or not liked or controversial or boring. That's totally sufficient.
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For me personally, it is important that the NFO and Beamslide make it clear whether material comes from third parties, whether it is AI-generated, or where the inspiration comes from. We disclose the use of demo tools and other things, so why shouldn't we also be transparent about the rest? People can then judge the production according to their own (moral) standards.Quote:Seconded.We have this process of voting to sort out what is liked or not liked or controversial or boring. That's totally sufficient.
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Quote:Now it's all part of a bigger tool chain, even professional ones.
Ah You mean like that "wonderful" Coca Cola Christmas commercial? Wow, that was really "professional".
No, that would be end2end case.
Some recent stats for you:
~87% of surveyed musicians/producers say they use AI in some part of their creative process
~75% video professionals use AI tools for video creation/editing tasks
And it's growing.
@tomkh
Yay! Right?
Yay! Right?
It's kinda hard not to see some parallels with previous scene drama:
1. Mass introduction of 3D graphics accelerators around 25-30 years ago. There were lots of "how dare you make my hand-crafted cycle-counted texture interpolating assembly routines obsolete; this is not demoscene, this is not art", which even looked reasonable at the time, because many early accelerated demos were clumsy boring flyby slop. But then we figured it out, 3d accelerators enabled very cool things that weren't possible before, and gave us a pile of great demos, so it became intrinsically acceptable to use them.
2. Use of game engines in demos. It also was heatedly discussed around 10 years ago, and it seems that it is just accepted nowadays. (Even though I personally strongly disagree with the wider community stance. I've yet to see any "cool demos" made with e.g. Unreal; all the stuff I've seen is slop, and there doesn't seem to be any progress at all)
I wonder of a hypothetical situation (kinda opposite to "too much slop" concern): what would community reaction be if we had a really exceptionally great demo (say, ASD or Fairlight quality one) that is also technically sound, and then the authors say "you know what, we cant code or draw for shit, and we just 100% vibe-coded the crap out of it".
1. Mass introduction of 3D graphics accelerators around 25-30 years ago. There were lots of "how dare you make my hand-crafted cycle-counted texture interpolating assembly routines obsolete; this is not demoscene, this is not art", which even looked reasonable at the time, because many early accelerated demos were clumsy boring flyby slop. But then we figured it out, 3d accelerators enabled very cool things that weren't possible before, and gave us a pile of great demos, so it became intrinsically acceptable to use them.
2. Use of game engines in demos. It also was heatedly discussed around 10 years ago, and it seems that it is just accepted nowadays. (Even though I personally strongly disagree with the wider community stance. I've yet to see any "cool demos" made with e.g. Unreal; all the stuff I've seen is slop, and there doesn't seem to be any progress at all)
I wonder of a hypothetical situation (kinda opposite to "too much slop" concern): what would community reaction be if we had a really exceptionally great demo (say, ASD or Fairlight quality one) that is also technically sound, and then the authors say "you know what, we cant code or draw for shit, and we just 100% vibe-coded the crap out of it".
demoscene team middle management here we go