Author Archives: Azuriel
Thought Process: OG Switch
Woot currently has a deal up for a brand new OLED Switch for $250. The sale is going until June 18th, or until they sell out, the latter of which seems more likely. Should I pull the trigger?
First question: why?
It’s a good question. For one thing, the Switch 2 just came out and it costs “only” $450. Right now, there aren’t very many actual Switch 2 games beyond Mario Kart World, so no real killer apps. Also, I have clearly sat out the entirety of the Switch’s original lifespan, so why jump in now? Also also, the Switch Lite appears to retail for around $180ish, which is even less, if it were somehow super important for me to play Switch games. Then again, $70 is probably reasonably enough to justify an OLED upgrade plus being able to dock it to a TV.
Not for nothing, the Retroid Pocket 5 can be bought from Amazon for $260. It would be even cheaper if not for the tariffs. It can emulate everything up through Gamecube, and even a few Switch titles. However, the process by which one acquires emulation-ready Switch games is the same for just playing them on the PC, so the only real benefit of one over the other is for gaming on the go. Which, as it turns out, I generally don’t do.
Second question: what would I play?
There are a few titles that immediately come to mind:
- Zelda: Breath of the Wild
- Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
- Mario Kart 8 Deluxe
- …?
When I was trying to think about the last Mario game I played, I realized that I hadn’t played one for a long time. The last Nintendo console I bought was Gamecube back in my college days, but it was primarily to play Super Smash Bros Melee and Mario Kart Double Dash. So, Super Mario… Sunshine, I never played. Nor Galaxy or Galaxy 2. Presumably they would be fun. But fun enough to justify $40 purchases of decades-old games? Ehhhh. Nintendo does have a subscription feature with classic games to play, but the Gamecube offerings right now are like 3 games (only for Switch 2).
Final question: what will I do?
After a long, exhaustive mental exercise, the answer is… Nothing. I will do nothing. I am not super convinced the OLED Switch will get any less expensive in the future, but that does not seem to matter much to me. Which makes sense, given all of my other gaming “obligations.” If anything, I would be more inclined for the Switch 2 simply because Mario Kart World does seem fun, and it’s backwards compatible, etc. Or the Retroid Pocket 5, honestly.
Or I can just continue to do waffle and whaff and do nothing until/unless some other solution releases that makes things more obviously clear. Like maybe a Steam Deck 2 or something.
More Impressions: FF7 Rebirth
I am still plugging away at Rebirth. Don’t worry, no story spoilers here.
What I did want to talk about (again) is just how baffling the game systems are. There are some things that are just awkward and annoying, but true to the original, like having to meticulously move Materia around every time your party is forced to change. Mercifully, the devs do allow you to equip Materia into a slot from someone else, eliminating some of the tedium.
But then there is all the new stuff. Which exists for… some reason, to the detriment of the game.
Weapons have Weapon Skill slots, which act like Materia (e.g. slot them), but I honestly have no clue where they come from. Maybe I missed the tutorial for that part and they automatically unlock? Anyway, they are pretty minor and largely inconsequential fiddly bits you have to mess with on occasion. Then you have the Folios, which reminds me of the Sphere Grid from Final Fantasy X. Or would if any choices there mattered either. Yes, the Folios are where you unlock Synergy Abilities and special magic attacks that don’t require MP. But along the way you have to spent points on things like “increase MP by 3” and “increase whatever by 5%.” Filler by itself is not always bad, but this is just one of a myriad of new systems introduced, again, for what reason?
And by the way, what Rebirth has done with spellcasting makes me wonder why they bothered with it at all. One of the issues of the first game (Remake) is wandering into a boss fight that hinges on you exploiting an elemental weakness that none of your team has equipped. With the Folios, all characters can unlock specific abilities that allow them to cast most elements without needing the Materia or even MP. That’s cool. However, the introduction of Synergy Abilities – which require two characters to perform ~3 ATB actions apiece – places a huge emphasis on executing actions that “count” towards them. What doesn’t count? Spells and those abilities that cast spells. Which… why not? Seriously. Combined with characters that have elemental-based ATB attacks like Cloud’s Firebrand, the whole spell system feels de-emphasized.
The other element (har har) that is becoming more annoying to me over time is the disparity between the characters themselves. Specifically, Tifa and Red XIII versus Yuffie. Both Tifa and Red XIII are melee-only characters that end up facing what feels like 80% flying enemies thus far. Not only can they not hit these flying mobs to gain ATB, many of their abilities won’t hit either. Enter Yuffie: primarily a melee character, that can also throw her Shuriken at distant/flying foes as a secondary attack. If it hits, a second tap of the button will teleport her to the Shuriken and allow her to start melee attacking the target, even in mid-air. Alternatively, if you start hitting the regular attack button, Yuffie will start attacking with her elemental ninjitsu, which is an instantaneous ranged attack. Did I mention she can change the element of the ninjitsu to target weaknesses?
I will concede that perhaps the devs feel a bit boxed in here. Tifa has the same attacks she did in the first game, as does Yuffie… who was released as a solo DLC character, and thus needed to have a broad spectrum of attacks to make up for it. At the same time, with all the craziness of Remake, I don’t think anyone would bat an eye at Tifa/Red having some way of engaging flying foes. Whatever the case, the end result is that while I want my party to be Cloud, Tifa, and Aerith, the classical trio is way outclassed by Cloud, Yuffie, and Barret. Sure, I could just do what I want and just take the OG crew, but that will make the enormously boring fights take even longer.
There are two final things I wanted to talk about, that are possibly only “me” problems. I’m very important, of course, so these are major issues. Those issues are Pacing and Tone.
From a Pacing perspective, Rebirth effectively has none. What typically happens is that you get to a new area, have a few Main Story Quests (MSQ), and then the next stage is far away into a blank map. Some of the time it is possible to make a direct approach and ignore the 20+ map icons and side quests and towers and collectibles and so on and so forth. There was even a time when the MSQ was almost directly in sight and you had to go out of your way to leave the area to hit up all the extraneous stuff. Other times you do have to unlock a certain amount of things and/or need to hit certain level milestones to not be stomped by the next boss. Regardless, I’m not a completionist or an achievement hunter, but I do actually care about extracting every drop of interaction I can from these characters that occupied so much of my youth, so I end up finishing everything I can stand.
Unfortunately, the end result is that I spend 2-3 play sessions doing busywork with this awful combat system and just can’t bring myself to push further into the story until I mentally recharge.
Double-unfortunately for me, the Tone for this game is all over the place. The original FF7 had extremely weird sections and comic relief at regular intervals, of course – the entire Wall Market sequence, for example. But I feel like the devs decided that every air pocket created from stretching the game into a trilogy needed to filled with nonsense. And not just a little nonsense, but ridiculous nonsense. Which again, fine, comic relief is a thing. However, the game isn’t that heavy to justify this amount of relief. Indeed, it’s hard to take much of anything seriously based on the in-game presentation. For example, there is a section in which Shrina soldiers are gunned down and everyone is somber and clutching pearls. Fast-forward past a bunch of filler quests (god, I wish I could have), you face off against a bunch of Shrina soldiers… that you gun down. What.
If it sounds like I’m not having a good time, you would be correct. I am currently sitting at 46 hours and sort of wish things had ended 30 hours ago. In the interest of plowing ahead, I have started to actually ignore the more Ubisoft-styled busywork, but it’s still tough.
This game is not the follow-up to Remake I was hoping for.
Review: Dawncaster
Dawncaster is mobile deckbuilding roguelite that is in the esteemed company of Slay the Spire and Balatro for how many hours I have played, and how willing I was to pay real dollars for the privilege. While it does have some design choices that limit its depth, I can consistently find myself playing runs lasting for hours while also experimenting with different strategies.
As mentioned, Dawncaster is a deckbuilding roguelite. At the beginning of each run, you can choose between one of six classes, which is then customized with a selection of Basic Attacks, a Weapon Ability, and then a special Starting Card. Alternative options can be unlocked using in-game currency earned from daily quests and completing runs (win or lose). Once you begin a run, you enter “Canto 1” (of 9) and are presented with three encounter options from a “deck,” which can include treasures, shrines, NPCs, or monsters. With the exception of treasures, the two non-selected encounter cards are then reshuffled into the deck. Your goal is to work your way to the boss of the Canto and defeat them.
Monster combat is fairly typical for the genre. Each turn, you gain energy of a specific type (Blue, Green, Red, etc) for your class and draw 5 cards; leftover energy is carried over into future turns, but cards are discarded. From this base, a wide variety of scenarios and strategies develop. There are debuffs like Bleeding, Poison, Doom, and buffs like Armor, Barrier, Focus. There are cards that draw cards, cards that discard cards, cards that stay in your hand from turn to turn, curses that go into your deck or the enemy’s deck, enchantments, temporary cards, and so on and so forth. Also, cards can be upgraded and even have keywords added to them.
If anything, the sheer breadth of options is one of the shortcomings of Dawncaster. And, paradoxically, that same breadth leads to many runs feeling the same.
As mentioned previously, there are six classes… but there are no specific class cards, only color cards. Certain classes start locked to a specific color, such as the Arcanist and Blue energy. After each successful combat encounter, you get to select one of three card rewards that are tied to what energy you have access to. Generally speaking, the mechanics within each color are synergistic, but even when they aren’t, at least you can try to focus on the one you want. The problem is when you gain access to other colors, which can happen at class selection or even during a given run depending on your choices. At that point, you still only get three card rewards after each encounter, but now the card pool expands to include both colors. Sometimes this can be a good thing – some colors are better at card draw or specific debuffs, etc – but often this means you will be offered useless rewards for most of a run, leading to failed decks. Alternatively, even when things go perfectly, it usually does so because a specific combo is so much better than the other available options.
Dawncaster has multiple DLCs available for purchase, which adds more cards, enemies, encounters, and bosses. Tragically, the additional cards do not feel all that good because of the specific issue above: if they are not directly related to your strategy, they just pollute your limited card choices. There is a shopkeeper NPC that gives you a bunch of card choices, but again, there are so many cards out there that you can hit them up a half dozen times and still never find the necessary cards to make your strategy work. Of course, targeting a specific strategy is probably not the best idea; I would never start a Slay the Spire run and say “I’m doing a Poison build this time” before seeing some good Poison cards. But at least with Slay the Spire, I would only see The Silent cards as rewards, rather than every class.
Anyway, this is the quibble I have with Dawncaster after literally a hundred hours or more of gameplay. I still feel like Slay the Spire is the better deck-building roguelike, but Dawncaster is in the top 5 for the genre, if not directly second place (especially on mobile). If you are looking for something to play on your phone that isn’t F2P and/or gacha, I can definitely recommend this game.
Dumb Problems to Have
Scenario: Fanatical is having another one of their bundle sales. In this specific situation, you want to pick up Backpack Heroes and at least one other game, in order to activate the discount. But which other game? Looking through things, you remember hearing that Laika: Aged Through Blood was an interesting “motorvania”. But wait a minute… do you already have that? Let’s check:
- Steam
- Epic
- GOG
- EA
- Amazon
- Ubisoft Connect
- Xbox Game Pass
Luckily, there are a few aggregators. GOG Galaxy is one, for example. However, for some reason it has got stuck trying to import your Epic games, and thus you can never really trust it. Google searches show you Heroic Games Launcher and Lutris, but after browsing it appears those are Linux-based options intended for the Steam Deck and/or Linux handhelds. Finally, you see Playnite. Will that work?
Yes… and no. Out of the box, Playnite will display every Xbox Game Pass game you have ever played before, even if it is no longer on the service. Very annoying. There is an add-on you can install though, to create a separate button to browse the currently available Game Pass games (under Generic: “Game Pass Catalog Browser”). Additionally, there is still some oddness with Steam, insofar as the 449 hours /played of 7 Days to Die is not registering, which kind of calls into question the validity of any of the other stats. But, at least it’s something.
Of course, all of this is an exceedingly dumb/first-world problem to have. A true “I can’t hold all these games” moment. A double-embarrassment of riches, if you will.
I just wish this modern problem would have a modern solution.
Dollar Per Hour of Entertainment
Today I want to talk about the classical “$1 Per Hour of Entertainment” measurement of value. This has been a staple of videogame value discussions for decades. There are multiple problems with the formula though, and I think we should collectively abandon its use even as general rule of thumb.
The first problem is foundational: what qualifies as “entertainment”? When people evoke the formula, they typically do so with the assumption that hours spent playing a game are hours spent entertained. But is that actually the case? There are dozens and dozens of examples of “grind” in games, where you must perform a repetitive, unfun task to achieve a desired result. If you actively hate the grinding part but still do it anyway because reward is worth it, does the entire process count as entertainment? Simply because you chose to engage with the game at all? That sounds like tautology to me. May as well add the time spent working a job to get the money used to buy the game in that case.
Which brings me to the second problem: the entertainment gradient. Regardless of where you landed with the previous paragraph, I believe we can all agree that some fun experiences are more fun than others. In which case, shouldn’t that higher tier of entertainment be more valuable than the other? If so, how does that translate into the formula? It doesn’t, basically. All of us have those examples of deeply personal, transformative gaming experiences that we still think about years (decades!) later. Are those experiences not more valuable than the routine sort of busywork we engage with, sometimes within the same game that held such highs? It is absolutely possible that a shorter, more intensely fun experience is “worth” more than a mundane, time-killing one that we do more out of habit.
Actually, this also brings up a third problem: the timekeeping. I would argue that a game’s entertainment value does not end when you stop playing. If you are still thinking about a game days/months/years after you stopped playing, why should that not also count towards its overall value? Xenogears is one of my favorite games of all time, and yet I played through it once for maybe 80 hours back in 1998. However, I’ve thought about the game many, many times over the intervening decades, constantly comparing sci-fi and/or anime RPGs to it, and otherwise keeping the flame of its transformative (to me) memory alive. Journey is another example wherein I played and completed it in a single ~3 hour session, and I still think about it on occasion all these years later. Indeed, can you even say that your favorite games are the same ones with the highest dollar per hour spent playing?
The fourth problem with the formula is that it breaks down entirely when it comes to free-to-play games. Although there are some interesting calculations you can do with cash shop purchases, the fact remains that there are dozens of high-quality games you can legitimately play for hundreds of hours at a cost of $0. By definition, these should be considered the pinnacle of entertainment value per dollar spent, and yet I doubt anyone would say Candy Crush is their favorite gaming experience of all time.
The final problem is a bit goofy, but… what about inflation? The metric has been $1 per hour of entertainment for at least 20 years, if not longer. If we look at 1997, $1 back then is as valuable as $2.01 today. Which… ouch. But suggesting that the metric should now be $2 per hour of entertainment just feels bad. And yet, $1 per two hours of entertainment also seems unreasonable. What games could hit that? This isn’t even bringing up the other aspect of the intervening decades: loss of free time. Regardless of which way inflation is taken into account, fundamentally I have less time for leisure activities than I did back in high school/college. Therefore the time I do have is more valuable to me.
At least, you’d think so. Lately I’ve been playing Hearthstone Battlegrounds (for free!) instead of any of the hundreds of quality, potentially transformative game experiences I have on tap. Oh well.
Now, I get it, nobody really uses the $1 per hour of entertainment metric to guide their gaming purchases – they would otherwise be too busy playing Fortnite. But, fundamentally, calculating the per hour rate is about the worst possible justification for a discretionary purchase, the very last salve to ease the burn of cognitive dissonance. “At least I played this otherwise unremarkable game for 60+ hours.” Naw, dawg, just put it down. Not every game is going to be a winner for us individually, and that’s OK. Just take the L and move on. Everything is about to start costing $80, and you sure as shit don’t have 20 more hours per game to pretend you didn’t get bamboozled at checkout.
But you know what? You do what you want. Which is hopefully doing what you want.
RG35XXSP
In what I like to imagine as an Ocean’s Eleven-style delivery, my Anbernic RG35XXSP (hereafter SP) arrived to its new home two weeks or so ago with its then-current sales price intact, e.g. no surprise tariffs. Unfortunately for anyone currently reading this, Anbernic is suspending shipments to the US. They supposedly have a warehouse in the US they can ship from, but for how long remains to be seen.
Anyway, here is the SP next to the Mini+:
There are plenty of Youtube videos out there with detailed analyses between the two, so I won’t get into that here. What I will say is that if I had to do it all over again… I would have gotten an emulator with a thumbstick. In probably a horizontal orientation. So… maybe just a Retroid Pocket 5.
To be clear, the main “problem” I have is probably N64 envy. When I was looking at the curated list of 100s of games from my youth, the first thing that came to mind to try was Super Mario Kart (SNES). While that was nice, it was also, well, extremely basic. Which, of course it was. So then I moved up to Super Mario Kart Advance (GBA) and that felt a bit better with more interesting tracks and items. And then I took a detour into Super Mario 64 and that… didn’t feel that great. It actually played just fine on the SP, but obviously you have to use the D-pad as an analog stick.
As a somewhat related aside, I’m not sure if this is a handheld issue or an emulator issue or something I’ve just forgotten about in the intervening decades, but holding down B to run and pressing A to jump while moving is… hard? Like, I’m talking in the original Super Mario Bros. If you let go of B in mid-air, you lose any momentum you have when you land, if not while airborne. Did we all just smoosh our thumb-meat inbetween those two buttons and rock it 45 degrees when you needed to jump? I’m tempted to change the controller scheme to add one of the shoulder buttons as a Run button.
Aside from Nintendo, one of the other games I have surprisingly been playing is Xenogears. At first, this felt a bit awkward on the SP considering Xenogears is a 3D game with a spinnable camera and even a jump button… until I realized that the PS1 didn’t have analog sticks either. Oh my. In any case, I’m not certain that I will continue playing Xenogears much on the handheld devices, specifically because when I have the opportunity to do so, I usually can’t have the sound cranked up. Probably half the nostalgia of these games – and especially Squaresoft ones – comes from the soundtrack, so it’s a big loss. All of which brings up my reminder about your use case for emulation. Bring some headphones, at least.
In any event, what I can say is that between the SP and the Mini+, I do prefer the SP. There is an argument that the SP might have a hinge problem in the future, but there is something deeply satisfying about being able to close the clamshell at a moment’s notice and forget about the device in your pocket without having to baby it. I bought the Mini+ with a carrying case, but at that point the “pocket portability” aspect is diminished. The SP is probably not good for my 6-year old who would undoubtedly just open and shut the lid a 1000 times absentmindedly, but it’s certainly safer from a screen point of view once he’s older.
OldSpend vs NewSpend
A couple weeks back, the blogging theme of the week was looking at how much money you’ve spent on Steam over the years. I was not entirely interested at the time, but after navigating my way to the result, what I did find interesting were two distinct numbers:
“OMG I spent $2,846.65 over the course of… like 21 years!” Sure. I don’t consider $11.30/month over more than two decades a particularly noteworthy entertainment budget. Especially considering I played WoW for more than half that time. Certainly cheaper than (now) Netflix.
No, the interesting number is the OldSpend of $1,853.89. That number (already in the total) is defined as money spent before 2015, when there was presumably some updates to the backend systems. Which means I spent 66% of the total amount on Steam games in the first 10 years as compared to the last 11. That tracks with the rise of Humble Bundles, the decline of Steam sales, and so on.
Steam is still getting their cut of sales from these middlemen, but I did find it interesting nonetheless.
Impressions: FF7 Rebirth
I started Final Fantasy 7: Rebirth, middle-child of the “break glass in emergency” remake gambit trilogy.
The first game started extremely strong, with an overdose of weapons-grade nostalgia straight to the jugular. Midgar exceeded my expectations (and formative memories) in a way I thought would have been impossible. I mean, when they say “you can’t go home again,” the implication is usually not that the today home is so outstandingly better that it blows the old home out of the water. The personalities, the dialog, the little mannerisms… chef’s kiss. Has it really been three years?
However, you’ll note we’re now in paragraph three without saying anything about the current game.
Visually, Rebirth an outstanding feast for the eyes. The level of detail in random corners of the city of Kalm is mind-blowing considering how (presumably) little of the game will be based there. The setting of FF7 has always been one of my favorite parts of the game – the juxtaposition between technology and magic and a world in decline – so seeing Cloud walk past vending machines and people taking pictures while he has a huge Buster Sword strapped to his back somehow hits all the right notes for me.
However, there is some significant trepidation on my part. One of the first big post-tutorial reveals is… the Grasslands! You know, the like… generic overworld between points of actual interest in the original game. While I appreciate that the devs were perhaps trying to recapture the 1997 experience when you realized that Midgar was only the opening sequence in the game, my own reaction was a heavy sigh once a big gray map popped up. I further massaged my temples when I later saw 37 different icons appear all over the map. You cannot have nostalgia for doing the same open-world checklists that exist for every modern open-world game. While it is presumably possible to ignore everything else and just hit the next Main Scenario icon, that leads me to the next source of concern: the battle system.
It’s still extremely early on, but as far as I can tell the battle system has only gotten more complex and even less fun as a result. The ATB system is still there, which means actual combat revolves around you spamming light attacks until you fill a meter and can use exciting features like Item or Spell or Ability. Low on health? You better… attack the enemy some more and hope you live long enough to undo a small amount of the damage you took trying to fill up the meter to allow you to heal. But, be careful: just like last game your precious ATB action can be interrupted, or miss entirely if it’s an attack. Which I could understand if this were a Souls-like or whatever, but it is not.
The new combat system additions are Synergy Skills and Synergy Abilities. Once unlocked in the “Folio,” Skills can be used while pressing the Block button and allow two party members to do a special action without needing the ATB gauge. Which is good, giving you at least some extra buttons to push aside from X spam. Synergy Abilities are super-Abilities between two party members that are only active once each character has used enough ATB actions. Some of these are cool, as they result in unique buffs that last quite a while, like giving characters infinite MP. Which, now that I think about it, isn’t as cool considering you still have to have a free ATB bar built up to utilize.
It’s like, what even is this combat system? Spam tiny attacks to fill a meter and then slow down time to select Abilities/Magic, then switch between multiple characters to do the same, then you eventually get to cast Summons (ATB-based), or Limit Breaks, or now Synergy Abilities.
I’m only 7 hours in, so maybe combat gets better this time? Please tell me it gets better. Sigh.
In other words, it’s a rough start to FF7 Rebirth. I’m going to stick with it because Junon, Golden Saucer, and Costa del Sol – along with the overall direction – but Square Enix ain’t making it easy to get there.
/Sweat
Got this email yesterday:
____
Got this email earlier today:
So… what’s the over/under for whether the RG35XXSP will make it to my door as-is versus a letter saying it now costs $112.21? Or maybe de minimis applies and it’ll just be 30% higher… or an extra $25. Or both. Or neither.
Weeee.
In An Age 
N(AI)hilism
May 26
Posted by Azuriel
Wilhelm has a post up about how society has essentially given up the future to AI at this point. One of the anecdotes in there is about how the Chicago Sun-Times had a top-15 book lists that only included 5 real books. The other is about how some students at Columbia University admitted they complete all of their course-work via AI, to make more time for the true reason they enrolled in an Ivy League school: marriage and networking. Which, to be honest, is probably the only real reason to be going to college for most people. But at least “back in the day” one may have accidentally learned something.
From a concern perspective, all of this is almost old news. Back in December I had a post up about how the Project Zomboid folks went out of their way to hire a human artist who turned around and (likely) used AI to produce some or all of the work. Which you would think speaks to a profound lack of self-preservation, but apparently not. Maybe they were just ahead of the curve.
Which leads me to the one silver-lining when it comes to the way AI has washed over and eroded the foundations of our society: at least it did so in a manner that destroys its own competitive advantage.
For example, have you see the latest coming from Google’s Veo 3 video AI generation? Among the examples of people goofing around was this pharmaceutical ad for “Puppramin,” a drug to treat depression by encouraging puppies to arrive at your doorstep.
Is it perfect? Of course not. But as the… uh, prompt engineer pointed out on Twitter, these sort of ads used to cost $500,000 and take a team of people to produce over months, but this one took a day and $500 in AI credits. Thing is, you have to ask what is eventual outcome? If one company can reduce their ad creation costs by leveraging AI, so can all the others. You can’t even say that the $499,500 saved could be used to purchase more ad space, because everyone in the industry is going to have that extra cash, so bids on timeslots or whatever will increase accordingly.
It all reminds me about the opening salvo in the AI wars: HR departments. When companies receive 180 applications for every job posting, HR started utilizing algorithms to filter candidates. All of a sudden, if you knew the “tricks” and keywords to get your resume past said filter, you had a significant advantage. Now? Every applicant can use AI to construct a filter-perfect resume, tailored cover letter, and apply to 500 companies over their lunch break. No more advantage.
At my own workplace, we have been mandated to take a virtual course on AI use ahead of a deployment of Microsoft Claude. The entire time I was watching the videos, I kept thinking “what’s the use case for this?” Some of the examples in the videos were summarization of long documents, creating reports, generating emails, and the normal sort of office stuff. But, again, it all calls into question what problem is being solved. If I use Claude to generate an email and you use Claude to summarize it, what even happened? Other than a colossal waste of resources, of course.
Near as I can tell, there are only two endgoals available for this level of AI. The first we can see with Musk’s Grok, where the AI-owners can put their thumbs (more obviously) on the scale to direct people towards skinhead conspiracy theories. I can imagine someone with less ketamine-induced brain damage would be more subtle, nudging people towards products/politicians/etc that have bent the knee and/or paid the fee. The second endgoal is presumably to actually make money someday… somehow. Currently, zero of the AI companies out there make any profit. Most of them are free to use right now though, and that could possibly change in the future. If the next generation of students and workers are essentially dependent on AI to function, suddenly making ChatGPT cost $1000 to use would reintroduce the competitive advantage.
…unless the AI cat is already out of the bag, which it appears to be.
In any case, I am largely over it. Not because I foresee no negative consequences from AI, but because there is really nothing to be done at this point. If you are one of the stubborn holdouts, as I have been, then you will be ran over by those who aren’t. Nobody cares about the environmental impacts, the educational impacts, the societal impacts. But what else is new?
We’re all just here treading water until it reaches boiling temperature.
Posted in Commentary
3 Comments
Tags: AI, ChatGPT, Google Veo 3, Nihilism