The Fight Against Generative AI Is Not Lost

The biggest betrayal this week—aside from Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s against his wife, his mistress(es), company, country, and stock market—was… probably not the revelation that Big Walk’s developers made minor use of generative AI in the final stretch of the game’s development. But it still felt really bad! It’s hard not to look around the industry and come to the conclusion that this is just How Things Are Now, that AI is inescapable. But that doesn’t mean the battle is lost, nor that it was never worth fighting in the first place. On the latest Aftermath Hours, we discuss.

This time around, we convene to talk about the (at the time of recording) looming prospect of Jensen Huang’s complete career implosion brought on by—as could happen to any of us—his affair with an alleged Chinese spy. What happens to Nvidia now? And, I suppose more pressingly, what does this mean for the global economy, of which Nvidia props up a significant portion? Also, why do billionaires keep taking such unnecessary midlife crisis risks? Is it because they usually end up getting away with it? (Yeah.)

Then we move on to the other major headline of the week: As it turns out, Big Walk, an indie darling whose creators have taken a number of otherwise-progressive stances, was made with a tiny bit of help from generative AI. Why did this feel like such a betrayal to so many, despite AI not generating any in-game assets? And what does this mean for an industry where AI has begun to feel increasingly inescapable? Lastly, we talk about our various near-death experiences (spoiler: we survived them).

You can find this week's episode below and on Spotify, Apple, or wherever else you prefer to listen to podcasts. You can also watch it on YouTube. If you like what you hear, leave a review (or sub to our YouTube channel) so that we can someday spiral into a series of massively damaging midlife crises and destroy the United States economy once and for all.

Here’s an excerpt from our conversation (edited for length and clarity):

Nathan: I’ve seen a lot of people saying, “You’ve just gotta accept this; AI will be present in game development from now on.” And they’ll add that you’re taking an absolute stance against AI, but you’re doing it on Bluesky, which has been coded with AI, or you search on Google, which automatically pops up an AI module. You’re using it in that sense. You don’t have a choice, but you’re doing it.

So to, at this point, in the general progression of things, take an anti-AI stance in an absolute fashion, you’re fighting a losing battle. You’re swimming against the current, and you are ultimately not going to be able to accomplish anything. And I think that is a stupid and in its own way absolute stance in a few ways.

First, you don’t take a stance just because that’s the winning team. You don’t have principles because you think you’re on the side that’s for sure gonna come out on top in the end. You have principles to have principles. And, yes, in some cases it’s impossible to avoid AI. That doesn’t mean you should immediately give up, shrug your shoulders, and completely roll over. You fight battles where you can.

Luke: It’s “We live in a society.”

Nathan: Right, it’s like that meme of “Yet you participate in society? Curious!” Like, yeah, because there’s nothing else to participate in. I can participate in society or starve to death.

Then there’s the other element of—and Riley mentioned this, too—the internet having been hollowed out and destroyed in large part by AI companies or companies that have come to embrace AI like Google. That’s definitely a cause of the problem Big Walk’s developers encountered. But I think that in using AI to solve the problem, you are also contributing to a future even-more-hollowed-out internet.

You’re basically conceding that ground to AI instead of saying, “OK well, if there’s not this functional and searchable ecosystem of blogs and websites or good Unity documentation or what have you, we’ve gotta help rebuild or reassemble it.” And yes, I’m aware that Big Walk’s developers sought out assistance from other people and did what they could to some degree.

But I think once you decide to throw up your hands and use a chatbot, if everyone starts doing that, then there will no longer be an impetus to build the other, better alternative thing. It’s just gonna be people using AI. And that’s what the AI companies want. It’s why they hollowed out the internet in the first place and allowed it to become so corroded.