Connect with us

Technology

Developers worried by generative tech

Published

2 months ago

on

Developers worried by generative tech
Getty Images A convention attendee stands in front of a screen displaying a CPU-controlled character in a 3D environment. The man in front of the screen is leaning over a keyboard. A sign above the screen reads "bring characters to life with on-device AI models".Getty Images

Nvidia’s AI-driven avatars have been hailed as a glimpse of gaming’s potential future by some

“I’m very aware that I could wake up tomorrow and my job could be gone,” says Jess Hyland.

The video game artist says the industry she’s spent almost 15 years working in is on “shaky” ground at the moment.

A boom in players and profits during the pandemic sparked a flurry of investments, expansions and acquisitions that, in hindsight, now look short-sighted.

Gaming remains profitable, but thousands of workers worldwide have lost their jobs, and successful studios have been shut down over the past two years.

Advertisement

More closures and cuts are feared.

“Everyone knows someone who’s been laid off. There’s lots of worry about the future,” says Jess.

Some bosses are talking up the potential of generative AI – the tech behind tools such as ChatGPT – as a potential saviour.

Tech giant Nvidia has shown off impressive development tool prototypes, and gaming industry heavyweights such as Electronic Arts and Ubisoft are investing in the tech.

Advertisement

It’s claimed AI tools can save development time, free workers up to focus on creativity and provide a more personalised user experience.

With budgets at the blockbuster end of the industry spiralling as audience expectations rise with them, it sounds like a perfect solution.

But not to everyone.

‘Jobs are going to change’

Advertisement

“The people who are most excited about AI enabling creativity aren’t creatives,” says Jess, a member of the Independent Workers Union of Great Britain’s game workers branch. She sits on its artificial intelligence working group.

Against the backdrop of widespread layoffs, Jess says the suspicion among workers is that bosses see AI as a path to cutting costs when labour is their biggest expense.

Jess says she knows one person who’s lost work due to AI, and has heard of it happening to others.

There are also dozens of accounts online suggesting that jobs in concept art and other traditionally entry-level roles have been affected.

Advertisement

Most firms making AI tools insist they’re not designed to replace humans, and there’s broad agreement that the technology is a long way from being able to do so.

Jess says the bigger worry is that “jobs are going to change, but not in a good way”.

Rather than creating their own material, says Jess, artists worry they could end up supplementing AI’s efforts, rather than the other way around.

IWGB A group of about 30 casually dressed people standing in the courtyard of an office building. Four people at the front are holding a purple and pink banner with the IWGB union Game Workers' branch logo and the slogan "Game Workers Beat Bosses". Some members of the group have their clenched fists raised above their heads.IWGB

Jess Hyland (seen holding the right side of the banner) is a member of the IWGB union’s game workers branch

Publicly available AI image generators, for example, can quickly output impressive-looking results from simple text prompts, but are famously poor at rendering hands. They can also struggle with chairs.

Advertisement

“The stuff that AI generates, you become the person whose job is fixing it,” says Jess. “It’s not why I got into making games.”

Gaming is a multibillion-dollar business but it’s also an artistic medium that brings together artists, musicians, writers, programmers and actors, to name just some.

A frequent concern is that AI will serve to minimise, rather than enable, the work of those creatives.

Copycat fears

Advertisement

It’s a view echoed by Chris Knowles, a former senior engine developer at UK gaming firm Jagex, known for its Runescape title.

“If you’re going to have to hire actual human artists to fix the output, why not harness their creativity and make something new that connects with players?” he says.

Chris, who now runs UK indie studio Sidequest Ninja, says that in his experience smaller developers are generally unenthusiastic about using generative AI.

One of his concerns is around cloned games.

Advertisement

Online game stores – where indie developers make most of their sales – are rife with imitations of original titles.

This is especially true of mobile games, says Chris, and there are studios set up “entirely to churn out clones”.

It’s not yet possible to rip off a whole game using AI, he says, but copying assets such as artwork is easily done.

“Anything that makes the clone studios’ business model even cheaper and quicker makes the difficult task of running a financially sustainable indie studio even harder,” says Chris.

Advertisement

He also points to the huge amounts of electricity required to run generative AI systems as a big concern.

Sidequest Ninja A screenshot showing a five-by-three grid of hollow cubes, each containing a smaller cube at its centre. Various crates and boxes float around the screen. A semi-circular dial at the bottom of the screen with fast-forward and play control buttons are used to control the on-screen action.Sidequest Ninja

Chris has released solo project Hexahedra under as Sidequest Ninja

Copyright concerns over generative AI – currently the subject of several ongoing legal cases – are one of the biggest barriers to its wider use in gaming right now.

Tools are trained on vast quantities of text and pictures scraped from the internet and, like many artists, Jess believes it amounts to “mass copyright infringement”.

Some studios are exploring systems trained on internal data, and third parties advertising ethical tools that claim to work off authorised sources are springing up.

Advertisement

Even then, the fear is that AI will be used to turn out assets such as artwork and 3D models at scale, and the expectation on workers will be to produce more output.

“The more content you can make, the more money you can make,” says Jess.

Some in the industry are more positive about AI.

Composer Borislav Slavov, who won a Bafta Games Award for his work on Baldur’s Gate 3, told the BBC he was “excited about what AI could bring to the table for music in the near future”.

Advertisement

Speaking at the recent Games Music Festival in London, he said he believed it would enable composers to “explore music directions faster” and push them out of their comfort zones.

“This would allow the composers to focus way more on the essence – getting inspired and composing deeply emotional and strong themes,” he said.

However, he did agree that AI could not “replace the human soul and spirit”.

While she has serious personal reservations about using the tech to “automate creativity”, Jess says she wouldn’t be against using it to bear the burden of some of the more repetitive admin tasks that are a feature of most projects.

Advertisement
More Technology of Business

The AI industry is currently trying to reassure governments and regulators over concerns about its future use, as shown by a recent law passed by the EU

It will also have to work hard to win over another group – gamers.

Online shooter The Finals received a backlash over its use of synthesised voice lines, and developer Square Enix was criticised for the limited use of generated art in its multiplayer game Foamstars.

Jess believes growing talk about AI has made gamers “think about what they love about games and what’s special about that – sharing experiences crafted by other humans”.

Advertisement

“I’m still putting something of myself into it and I think there’s a growing recognition of that.”

Indie developer Chris adds: “If you train a generative model on nothing but cave paintings, all it’ll ever give you will be cave paintings.

“It takes humans to get from there to the Sistine Chapel.”

Additional reporting by Laura Cress.

Advertisement

Source link

Related Topics:
Continue Reading
Advertisement
Click to comment

You must be logged in to post a comment Login

Leave a Reply

Technology

Quordle today – hints and answers for Sunday, November 10 (game #1021)

Published

13 mins ago

on

November 10, 2024

By

Quordle on a smartphone held in a hand

Quordle was one of the original Wordle alternatives and is still going strong now more than 1,000 games later. It offers a genuine challenge, though, so read on if you need some Quordle hints today – or scroll down further for the answers.

Enjoy playing word games? You can also check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and NYT Strands today pages for hints and answers for those puzzles.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Technology

NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Sunday, November 10

Published

33 mins ago

on

November 10, 2024

By

NYT Strands today: hints, spangram and answers for Saturday, September 21

Strands is a brand new daily puzzle from the New York Times. A trickier take on the classic word search, you’ll need a keen eye to solve this puzzle.

Like Wordle, Connections, and the Mini Crossword, Strands can be a bit difficult to solve some days. There’s no shame in needing a little help from time to time. If you’re stuck and need to know the answers to today’s Strands puzzle, check out the solved puzzle below.

How to play Strands

You start every Strands puzzle with the goal of finding the “theme words” hidden in the grid of letters. Manipulate letters by dragging or tapping to craft words; double-tap the final letter to confirm. If you find the correct word, the letters will be highlighted blue and will no longer be selectable.

If you find a word that isn’t a theme word, it still helps! For every three non-theme words you find that are at least four letters long, you’ll get a hint — the letters of one of the theme words will be revealed and you’ll just have to unscramble it.

Advertisement

Every single letter on the grid is used to spell out the theme words and there is no overlap. Every letter will be used once, and only once.

Each puzzle contains one “spangram,” a special theme word (or words) that describe the puzzle’s theme and touches two opposite sides of the board. When you find the spangram, it will be highlighted yellow.

The goal should be to complete the puzzle quickly without using too many hints.

Hint for today’s Strands puzzle

Today’s theme is “Nice fit”

Advertisement

Here’s a hint that might help you: specific types of outfits.

Today’s Strand answers

NYT Strands logo.
NYT

Today’s spanagram

We’ll start by giving you the spangram, which might help you figure out the theme and solve the rest of the puzzle on your own:

Today’s Strands answers

  • JUMP
  • CIVIL
  • STRONG
  • LEISURE
  • BIRTHDAY
  • BUSINESS






Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Technology

Google Tensor G6 could be a Huge Downgrade, in favor of Battery Life

Published

54 mins ago

on

November 10, 2024

By

Google Tensor G6 could be a Huge Downgrade, in favor of Battery Life

We’re still enjoying the Tensor G4 on the Pixel 9 series, but there’s talk about the Tensor G6 for the Pixel 11 already. And according to the latest report from Android Authority, the Tensor G6 could have a pretty big downgrade. Why? Google wants to fix battery life and the thermals of the Pixel series. Something that they had already done a good job with, for the Pixel 9.

Google is also looking to cut the costs of the Tensor chipset, along with increasing battery life. According to the documents that Android Authority has looked over, the goal for Tensor is to get the target to around $65, to make it viable. Qualcomm’s most recent flagship chips are rumored to cost about $150.

Google’s heard consumers complaints about Tensor

Google is aware of the problems with Tensor, and is looking to solve them. Internally, Google has acknowledged that the number one reason for Pixel returns is overheating. About 28% of returns mention thermals being a problem. They also know that battery life needs to be improved. Stating that “Good battery life attracts user & drives loyalty with higher satisfaction”.

The search giant is looking for ways to improve the situation by reducing the temperature in high-power use cases. Part of this comes by way of the new “Cinematic Rendering Engine” which will reduce the power consumption of video recording with blur by around 40%, which means that it generate considerably less heart.

Advertisement

So what does this mean for Tensor G6? Well, Googleis looking to reduce the die area, without regressing on features compared to the Tensor G5. Currently, the Tensor G5 is about 121 mm2, while the Apple A18 Pro is about 105 mm2, and both are using the same node process.

Tensor G6 is looking to hit that 105 mm2 die area, including 4% area saving from TSMC’s new N3P process node. In order to do this, some sacrifices had to be made, including getting rid of ray tracing and GPU virtualization. Google is also looking to ditch the little cluster on Tensor G6, providing one prime core that’s the ARM Cortex-A930, and then six performance cores that are the ARM Cortex-X730.

It appears that Google is still in the process of actually building this chip, so things could change. After all, the Tensor G4 just came out less than three months ago, and this chip is set for 2026.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Technology

Volvo EV drivers can start using Tesla’s Supercharger network this month

Published

1 hour ago

on

November 10, 2024

By

Volvo EV drivers can start using Tesla's Supercharger network this month

You can soon the battery of a Volvo at more than 17,800 Tesla Supercharger stations across the US and Canada. That should make it much easier for Volvo drivers to find a place to charge, even though they already had access to tens of thousands of fast charge points.

Starting November 18, drivers can locate Tesla Superchargers via the Volvo Cars app or built-in Google Maps. It’s possible to pay for charging sessions via the Volvo Cars app as well.

There’s one teensy catch, however, especially if you have had a Volvo EV for a while: to access Tesla Superchargers and other North American Charging Standard (NACS) chargers, you’ll need an adapter. This costs $230 ($310 CAD) and can be ordered from authorized Volvo retailers. The automaker will start shipping them to retailers on November 18, but adapters for the EX30 will be available at a later date. That said, Volvo is including the adapter with purchases of the new EX90 flagship SUV, EX40 or EC40 starting with model year 2025.

Volvo in June 2023 that it would support Tesla Superchargers and the NCAS. It’s one of many automakers that have backed a more standardized approach to EV charging in North America.

Advertisement

Source link

Continue Reading

Technology

Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill review: the smart features stressed me out

Published

2 hours ago

on

November 10, 2024

By

Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill review: the smart features stressed me out

2024 has been a stressful year. Other people might pick more relaxing ways to de-stress — a spa day, a nice cocktail, or maybe a social media detox. Not me, baby. I’ve decided to cope the same way I always do: ramping up training instead of stress eating my weight in mini-muffins. Except it’s unreasonable to abandon my desk and run a 5K every time the news cycle spikes my anxiety. Which is why, for the last three months, I’ve taken to logging miles on a desk treadmill. Specifically, the $240 Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill.

As an overly self-quantified wearables reviewer, I picked Mobvoi’s walking treadmill for one reason and one reason only: it pairs with a smartwatch so all your steps are properly counted. 

My beef with treadmills — especially ones you stick under a standing desk — is that you can walk 500 miles on them but your smartwatch will record maybe 100 steps. Your legs could be working overtime, but smartwatches rely on arm swings to count steps. I know because anytime I write and walk at the same time, my Apple Watch says I’ve done diddly squat. And that’s even when I record an indoor walking session. No one needs to record every little step, but it helps me keep track of my workout volume and intensity.

I chose Mobvoi’s desk treadmill because it connects with smartwatches.
Advertisement

Many folks get around that by strapping a smartwatch to their ankle. I refuse. Not only because I’ve tried it and found it uncomfortable but also because fitness tracking algorithms and sensors are all programmed and tested for your arm. Treadmill walk data becomes useless to me, a wearables reviewer, if I can’t trust that data to be accurate.

That’s where Mobvoi’s treadmill comes in. You can download the Mobvoi Treadmill app from the Google Play Store onto any Android smartwatch. (I used it with Mobvoi’s TicWatch Atlas and Samsung’s Galaxy Watches.) It connects to the walking pad when you turn it on. And voila. Your metrics are right there on your wrist — even if your arms are limp as you’re typing an email. It’s pretty accurate, too! There aren’t any extra sensors, but once connected to the app, it allows the device to share data with your watch. I noticed that meant my Android watches would correctly register my subtler movements as steps. My Oura Ring and Apple Watch didn’t.

Problem solved! Or, it would’ve been if I were a devoted Mobvoi user. But alas, even this simple walking pad can’t escape gadget ecosystems. 

But since you can also view stats on this display… technically you don’t need the smartwatch bit.
Advertisement

For whatever reason, Apple Watch users are out of luck, as the Mobvoi Treadmill app isn’t available in Apple’s App Store. To view your live stats via the wrist, you must have an Android smartwatch. I don’t love that, and it’s a little baffling considering all this does is connect the walking pad and your watch over Bluetooth. Fortunately, I spend a good chunk of the year testing Wear OS watches and don’t care about having two phones and wearing two smartwatches at all times. But that’s not most people, and for regular iPhone users, this is a nonstarter. I asked Mobvoi if an iOS version would ever arrive but didn’t hear back.

Somehow, getting your phone to actually save that data is even more of a headache. If you have a Mobvoi watch, there’s no problem. Workouts recorded in the Mobvoi Treadmill app automatically pop up in the separate Mobvoi Health app on your phone. But the Mobvoi Health app only works with Mobvoi watches. If you use any other kind of Android smartwatch, you can’t actually log the treadmill data into whatever health app you keep on your phone. The data is just stuck on your wrist.

Things like this are why people pick one ecosystem and stick with it. During testing, I fixated on how to get all my walking pad data onto my iPhone — the device where most of my health data is stored. Thinking through all the ways to get my data off Android and into Apple’s Health and Fitness apps was so exhausting, it made me not want to use the walking pad at all. There were weeks when I let it collect dust in my office because I didn’t want to use it if I wasn’t getting credit for it. And getting that credit was too much work.

This is my preferred turtle speed for walking while working.
Advertisement

At this point, I had to take a good hard look in the mirror. The whole point was to use this device to relieve stress. Instead, all I’d done was overcomplicate a walking pad. I ended up anxious and dreading my imperfect, messy metrics. I was so concerned about doing something “the right way” that I ended up not doing it at all. Looking back, I’ll be the first person to tell you that’s absurd. And yet, I’ve also been part of enough running and fitness communities to know that this is a common trap that even the best of us fall into.

My experience improved once I chucked the smartwatches into a drawer. I accepted my step counts wouldn’t be accurate and that my training algorithms across a dozen wearable platforms would be slightly off. I actually stopped recording my walks on every single platform altogether. As a result, my mental health improved, and I take far more walks now. My life isn’t any less stressful — I just have more endorphins, but that’s enough to make me more resilient.

Once I stopped caring about the data, I was free to figure out how to use the walking pad meaningfully. A lifelong overachiever, I started out trying to walk and work at 2.5mph to make it “worth it.” Imagine my surprised Pikachu face learning it’s quite difficult to walk at a brisk pace and write emails or even read because you’re bobbing up and down. And sweaty. Eventually, I accepted that my desk walks don’t have to be fast and found a turtle-like speed that works. (I’ve written most of this review at a 0.6mph pace.)

Turns out, ignoring the smart features and tracking helped me walk more.
Advertisement

On mornings when the caffeine just isn’t hitting, a 20-minute walk usually jogs my shriveled brain cells while I catch up on the news. When something just isn’t working in a draft, walking while reading my sentences helps enormously. I’ve also noticed how my body becomes so stiff when I’m frustrated, anxious, angry, or full of dread. Hopping on a walking pad for a ploddingly slow 10 minutes is always enough to loosen me up — even if my step count isn’t impressive.

I highly recommend a walking pad if you, too, often experience existential dread and anxiety. Just maybe not this exact one. It’s funny. I picked Mobvoi’s treadmill precisely because it had the bells and whistles. But at the end of the day, all the extra connectivity, the data, and the “smarts” got in my way. Sometimes, the best thing you can do is remember why you’re doing something, zero in on it, and cut out the extra noise.

Agree to Continue: Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill

Every smart device now requires you to agree to a series of terms and conditions before you can use it — contracts that no one actually reads. It’s impossible for us to read and analyze every single one of these agreements. But we started counting exactly how many times you have to hit “agree” to use devices when we review them, since these are agreements most people don’t read and definitely can’t negotiate.

Advertisement

You could just use the Mobvoi Home Walking Treadmill sans any smart features. In that case, you only agree to the terms and conditions of buying the actual product. However, if you use it with an Android smartwatch, you’re agreeing to the terms and policies of that device plus those of the Android phone it’s paired to. Optionally, you agree to any third-party services or apps you integrate with.

Used with a Mobvoi smartwatch, you’re agreeing to:

Final tally: anywhere from one to two mandatory policies and potentially several optional permissions.

Source link

Advertisement
Continue Reading

Technology

NYT Strands today — hints, answers and spangram for Sunday, November 10 (game #252)

Published

2 hours ago

on

November 10, 2024

By

NYT Strands homescreen on a mobile phone screen, on a light blue background

Strands is the NYT’s latest word game after the likes of Wordle, Spelling Bee and Connections – and it’s great fun. It can be difficult, though, so read on for my Strands hints.

Want more word-based fun? Then check out my Wordle today, NYT Connections today and Quordle today pages for hints and answers for those games.

Source link

Continue Reading

Trending

Copyright © 2024 WordupNews.com