Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

pcgamer.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

41–50 of 264 posts

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#41

Post by martythemaniak »

mschuster91 wrote: post #31
martythemaniak wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'll give you my diagnosis, which is derived from this: https://www.semafor.com/article/04/27/2025/the-group-chats-t... The thing to realize about the SV executive class is that they have constructed a closed ecosystem around them where they only talk amongst themselves and a small number of supporting actors who say what the execs need to hear. A CEO will talk to other CEOs he will not talk to his skip reports. Alte…

> In this information environment you see extremely rapid horizontal spread of weird, stupid and esoteric ideas - one CEO does a layoff, all of them will do layoffs. One turns MAGA, they all turn MAGA As for the layoffs, that one was to be expected, a correction after the insane hiring sprees during the ZIRP phase. As for MAGA... well, Trump made it clear. Either you walk the line with him, or you get screwed.

Well, we don't see a slight trimming of workforces, we see 20-80% layoffs in most cases with good financial performance. You see breathless claims of AI doing all the work one year, tokenmaxxing, then less than a year later everybody says don't spend so much on AI, progress wasn't as far as we expected. You see this in what people say about AI as well - one year everybody will be jobless in 5 years, next year "actually jobs are gonna be ok".

My point is that its hard to ignore just how in-tune and well-coordinated all these people are, and I don't think it's a coincidence. If CEOs were responding to actual political, economic and company developments, you'd see far more diversity of opinion. Some you see their companies are growing and profitable and wouldn't jump on the layoff bandwagon. Others may ask "Don't we need rule of law? What happens when the other party gets in power?" and fight the administration in courts etc.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#42

Post by ryandvm »

lackoftactics wrote: post #30
munificent wrote: post #20

1. Human attention is a finite resource. 2. Digital media allows a single authored work to consume the attention of an unbounded number of people with near zero marginal cost. Further, once a work has been authored, it is available to be consumed forever. 3. Computers, software, the web, and now AI have drastically lowered the cost to produce a work of digital media. You can't have fixed demand and have the supply in…

This seems to extend even beyond the arts. I would say that the race to add more features to web and mobile apps will face a similar obstacle. How long can we continue making 10x more features just because we can, until somebody realizes that users do not have the attention to spend on them? There might be a shift, but currently, we are too focused on pleasing shareholders.

Damn, enshittification was already one of the toughest unsolved problems that successful software platforms face. It had not yet occurred to me that AI was going to increase the pace.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#43

Post by MattDamonSpace »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

Not to mention “labor they don’t understand” is only possible with specialization and modernity.

Back when everyone was a farmer, yeah sure everyone understood the job

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#44

Post by [deleted] »

hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

[deleted]

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#45

Post by tancop »

sm-silversight wrote: post #23
ctoth wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sounds like you're complaining about capitalism, not AI?

Shareholder capitalism as milton friedman argued for it. Ford had a different vision but the Dodge brothers stamped it out.

Ford's vision wasn't that much better. Old school manager controlled companies only work if the people in charge are great like him with big plans and the skills to realize them. If the CEO is just average it will end badly, and if they good but retire or die in office their successor will probably be worse.

And it's extremely vulnerable to bad ideas that get amplified by wealth and power, like Ford's antisemitic paper that inspired the Nazis. Putting one person in charge of everything is never good. The best outcomes come from distributing power as widely as possible to people who are affected the most, aka worker ownership.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#46

Post by hax0ron3 »

MattDamonSpace wrote: post #43
hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

Not to mention “labor they don’t understand” is only possible with specialization and modernity. Back when everyone was a farmer, yeah sure everyone understood the job

I think that even back in early farming days, there were usually some guys who were good at using spears and didn't know much about farming who would go around taking part of the farmers' output. If the farmers were relatively lucky, the guys with the spears would stick around and defend the farmers from other guys with spears in a long-term arrangement of trading protection for material goods instead of just roaming around robbing farmers without giving anything back.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#47

Post by tiahura »

moshun wrote: post #8
tiahura wrote: post #3

The argument that it is in shambles wasn’t particularly persuasive. “videogames are as profitable as ever” It seemed more like the understandable frustration of someone whose profession is being automated. Schumpeter creative destruction, but not shambles.

Part of the problem is that some investor somewhere making profits is considered the only real marker for success. It’s an insane perspective that devalues all other (arguably more important) aspects of a work’s success.

How is that any different than the market for toilet paper or ovens?

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#48

Post by square_usual »

In the first paragraph:

> While videogames are as profitable as ever on paper

And the linked article is about revenue going up YoY, not profit. And then it says:

> It's remarkably dissonant with, say, the current 'Xbox reset' which has Microsoft cancelling games and looking to ax studios left and right

Xbox in their own earnings report said their revenues dropped by 7% YoY.

Yeah OK, I guess games journalist are as bad as they've ever been.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#49

Post by not_the_fda »

newtonianrules wrote: post #5

Does it seem like companies just aren’t that well run anymore? I mean, companies seem to be having massive layoffs and placing ever more work on the remaining employees. At what point will the remaining employees just collapse? Are we just reverting to the mean after years of zero interest rate policy? Would love for folks with experience working in tech in the 90s and 00s especially to chime in.

Companies haven't been well run in decades, if ever, especially American ones. I've worked for about a dozen companies in my 30+ year career. None have been well run, most are out of business. I do design services now, and have worked with dozens of companies through that, and the pattern continues.

We don't have leaders, or people that can make hard decisions, or think for themselves. They all follow the same book of the day business trends. If you do think outside the box you aren't a team player and are rocking the boat.

Re: Dwarf Fortress' creator says the industry's in shambles over AI

#50

Post by ThrowawayR2 »

dibujaron wrote: post #25
hax0ron3 wrote: post #22

>They're trying to have a CEO press a button that makes a game, and then everyone else somehow buys it without a job. If AIs get just a few times better than they are now, the CEO probably actually will be able to press a button that makes a good quality game. The problem for the CEO is that every other CEO will be able to do the same thing, so what will be the distinguishing factor? The buying without a job part isn…

"Blue collar workers and service industry workers aren't in immediate danger of being replaced by AI" I wouldn't be so sure about this; robotics is advancing rapidly. I do think there'll be a substantial market for "human-made" products and services as luxuries, though, so at least some humans will retain these jobs.

I'll believe that when I can get a robot plumber or electrician to come to my house for less than what a senior SWE makes per hour. Until then, it's just an empty promise.
Post reply on HN