That’s even sillier than watching another human play a videogame for entertainment (twitch streaming).
Even sillier than watching another human play soccer? Like the World Cup.
Yes but only marginally.
Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
71–80 of 81 posts
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#72That’s even sillier than watching another human play a videogame for entertainment (twitch streaming).
I kinda agree that watching an LLM play videogames is a bit silly, but watching other humans play videogames has been entertainment ever since videogames have existed. I remember taking turns playing the Atari 2600, watching each other play. I remember standing around cabinets at the arcade, watching good players play through Golden Axe or Rastan.
My own videogame playing has changed drastically in the last year or so. I used to go from one AAA $80 slop movie game to the next, but lately I’ve been hunting down recent-ish ports and collections of old arcade games (primarily bullet hell shmups but also Beat’em Ups and Run n Guns too) and really diving deep into them and dedicated a lot of trying getting better at them to really test my skill at these games. I never used to play games for score but a lot of these modern ports now have online leaderboards, so I’ve started to try and it’s crazy how much these games open up when you start playing them “as intended” by the developer. Seemingly simple games with few mechanics all of a sudden feel absolutely endless in their depth. These old school arcade developers wanted your quarters but holy man they knew how to design good games. Even simple, seemingly rudimentary, games like Pac-Man have been eureka moments for me once they’ve been blown open for scoring.
DoDonPachi DaiOuJou is my white whale. I don’t know if I’ll ever clear Hibachi but holy hell I’m gonna keep trying.
Watching an LLM play these for my entertainment would just be weird. I watch YouTube videos of world record score plays but not realy for entertainment, more like for study.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#73Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Presumably you're fine with using electricity to heat/cool your house, yes? Would you, then, also be fine with running three extra air conditioners/space heaters that do nothing but sit outside on the lawn? "People are OK with the energy usage already happening, so they should be OK with adding 32,767 AI datacenters too " doesn't make sense. It's essentially a reductio ad absurdum. Of course we're "selectively squeam…
I mean, if you actually understood the scale of AI power usage, it would make sense. A TV can run 200 watts/hour, so this is equivalent to... watching TV? Or, perhaps, watching TV in the background while you program. We are not in a power crisis, and data centers have had basically no impact on our lives compared to previous technologies. There are more data centers used for the internet, but somehow you're still her…
Sorry I'm a bit old school I don't watch tv when I program. What's the point of watching tv while programming anyway ? But can you really watch tv while programming ?
I can't
But maybe when you watch tv while programming you can watch documentaries about water crisis triggered by I datacenter usage, or maybe you can watch some reports about Elon using very poluting gas turbines to generate energy for their massive grok datacenter ...
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#75Earlier quoted context omitted.
I mean, if you actually understood the scale of AI power usage, it would make sense. A TV can run 200 watts/hour, so this is equivalent to... watching TV? Or, perhaps, watching TV in the background while you program. We are not in a power crisis, and data centers have had basically no impact on our lives compared to previous technologies. There are more data centers used for the internet, but somehow you're still her…
I'm sorry, when individual datacenters are drawing more power than entire cities, and needing to build entire new fossil-fuel-burning power plants to service their needs, you'll excuse me if I'm skeptical of your "it's just like watching TV" excuse there.
You might find it enlightening to look at the power draw and environmental impact of other technologies, for a sense of scale.
LLMs didn't even exist when we started expressing concern about global warming, the internet still uses the vast majority of data centers and thus power, smartphone manufacturing is a nightmare on multiple levels, the environmental effects of factory farming are staggering even if you apply zero moral weight to the suffering, the existence of automobiles... what automobiles used to be like...
It just seems bizarre to care about these issues solely in the context of one particular technology, while giving a free pass to everything prior.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm sorry, when individual datacenters are drawing more power than entire cities, and needing to build entire new fossil-fuel-burning power plants to service their needs, you'll excuse me if I'm skeptical of your "it's just like watching TV" excuse there.
You might find it enlightening to look at the power draw and environmental impact of other technologies, for a sense of scale. LLMs didn't even exist when we started expressing concern about global warming, the internet still uses the vast majority of data centers and thus power, smartphone manufacturing is a nightmare on multiple levels, the environmental effects of factory farming are staggering even if you apply z…
This is whataboutism.
No one's saying we shouldn't care about the impact of other technologies and industries too.
But when the AI industry is sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into building a huge number of datacenters, many of which have already been proven to have environmental and legal problems, sitting there saying, "You didn't complain when we got TV!" or even "You didn't complain when the datacenters were for AWS!" is just transparently trying to change the subject without addressing the very real concerns.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
You might find it enlightening to look at the power draw and environmental impact of other technologies, for a sense of scale. LLMs didn't even exist when we started expressing concern about global warming, the internet still uses the vast majority of data centers and thus power, smartphone manufacturing is a nightmare on multiple levels, the environmental effects of factory farming are staggering even if you apply z…
This is whataboutism. No one's saying we shouldn't care about the impact of other technologies and industries too . But when the AI industry is sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into building a huge number of datacenters, many of which have already been proven to have environmental and legal problems, sitting there saying, "You didn't complain when we got TV!" or even "You didn't complain when the datacenters w…
It's hardly "changing the subject" to try and establish whether this is actually a proportional effort. Your concern should, in fact, be relative to the harm something does. A single car killing one person is not a reason to demand the abolishment of the automotive industry.
If you care about saving the environment, you could do vastly more by protesting a dozen different causes. You can't give any reason this cause is special - just vague "environmental and legal problems" that probably add up to a half-dozen anecdotes. Meanwhile, Google is out there spending hundreds of billions of dollars and racking up it's own record of proven environmental and legal problems, and you can't even bring yourself to say "yeah, and I condemn Google and all other data centers" - partly because you're using a data center to send the message in the first place
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#78Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is whataboutism. No one's saying we shouldn't care about the impact of other technologies and industries too . But when the AI industry is sinking hundreds of billions of dollars into building a huge number of datacenters, many of which have already been proven to have environmental and legal problems, sitting there saying, "You didn't complain when we got TV!" or even "You didn't complain when the datacenters w…
It's hardly "changing the subject" to try and establish whether this is actually a proportional effort. Your concern should, in fact, be relative to the harm something does. A single car killing one person is not a reason to demand the abolishment of the automotive industry. If you care about saving the environment, you could do vastly more by protesting a dozen different causes. You can't give any reason this cause…
> It's hardly "changing the subject" to try and establish whether this is actually a proportional effort.
No, that's basically the definition of whataboutism.
We are talking about the problems with datacenters. You are trying to claim that we shouldn't be concerned with the problems of datacenters if we aren't at least equally concerned with the problems of X, Y, and Z other things.
There is no world in which that's a sound argument.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's hardly "changing the subject" to try and establish whether this is actually a proportional effort. Your concern should, in fact, be relative to the harm something does. A single car killing one person is not a reason to demand the abolishment of the automotive industry. If you care about saving the environment, you could do vastly more by protesting a dozen different causes. You can't give any reason this cause…
> It's hardly "changing the subject" to try and establish whether this is actually a proportional effort. No, that's basically the definition of whataboutism. We are talking about the problems with datacenters. You are trying to claim that we shouldn't be concerned with the problems of datacenters if we aren't at least equally concerned with the problems of X, Y, and Z other things. There is no world in which that's…
There is a world. In that world data centers are not a net problem, but net solution.
Looking at car exhaust and concluding that cars must be bad would be a questionable conclusion. We tolerate them despite the pollution they cause, not for it.
The same can go for data centers, again, if you conclude that they are net solution. If you don't, then it won't for you. The market simply disagrees with you in that case.
Re: Ask HN: Does anyone let AI agents play games just for fun?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It's hardly "changing the subject" to try and establish whether this is actually a proportional effort. No, that's basically the definition of whataboutism. We are talking about the problems with datacenters. You are trying to claim that we shouldn't be concerned with the problems of datacenters if we aren't at least equally concerned with the problems of X, Y, and Z other things. There is no world in which that's…
There is a world. In that world data centers are not a net problem, but net solution. Looking at car exhaust and concluding that cars must be bad would be a questionable conclusion. We tolerate them despite the pollution they cause, not for it. The same can go for data centers, again, if you conclude that they are net solution. If you don't, then it won't for you. The market simply disagrees with you in that case.
This has nothing to do with "the market".
This is a handful of incredibly wealthy companies deciding for us all.