this post was submitted on 24 Aug 2025
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The new york times continues to have low standards (lemmy.dbzer0.com)
submitted 2 months ago by irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/techtakes@awful.systems
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Source: https://archive.ph/Mrnth

transcript
A snippet from a New York Times article shared on tumblr. It says: "Most experts acknowledge that a takeover by artificial intelligence is coming for the video game industry within the next five years, and executives have already started preparing to restructure their companies in anticipation. After all, it was one of the first sectors to deploy A.I. programming in the 1980s, with the four ghosts who chase Pac-Man each responding differently to the player's real-time movements.".
The post has the caption: "Is this seriously the level of journalism the NYT now tolerates."

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[–] Lodespawn@aussie.zone 82 points 2 months ago (2 children)

I'm sceptical about AI programming Pacman, but it's fairly obvious that the New York Times is leaning into AI journalism ..

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 73 points 2 months ago (3 children)

Not that long ago the algorithms that controlled the enemies in video was called AI, that's what they trying to mislead with.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 months ago (3 children)

I've been calling it enemy behaviour since the first time I programmed one like 15 years ago. AI was never the right word for how game npcs and enemies work but it stuck anyway 😞

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 21 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Developers don't call it AI, but players have been calling npc behavior "AI" since forever.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 18 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Nah, stuff like the A* algorithm is called Pathing AI and stuff like Steering Behaviors (the kind of simple rules for agent movement that you would see in simulating fish shoals or bird flocks - or more generally "boids" - though it can be used for other stuff) is also sometimes called AI.

Basically the kind of algorithms that make something seem the behave in a lifelike or intelligent way was what tended to be called AI.

The stuff using the kind of technologies that are also in things like LLMs (such as Neural Networks) is called ML (for Machine Learning).

It's just that the Tech Bros in this latest scam of their have changed the general understood meaning of the acronym AI.

[–] lunarul@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Pathfinding algorithms happen to be what my bachelor thesis was about. Something like D* could generously be called AI as it does modify its parameters as the terrain becomes known or it changes. I don't think A* is still being used in games today.

But yes, once it became common to call any npc behavior "AI" by gamers, it has been adopted by game developers too.

[–] ArmoredThirteen@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

A* is still very common in games. Part of that is momentum: a lot of libraries use it under the hood and haven't updated, and there are so many tutorials for A* it's practically synonymous with pathfinding

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 1 points 2 months ago

IMO, A* in RTS games tended to create a lot of situations like "ore truck runs around two long cliff faces and through the enemy base because that's the closest ore patch in a straight line". They mostly fixed this by having specific harvesting locations like Starcraft, as opposed to big ore fields like C&C used to have. Actual pathfinding is as bad as it ever was, but the mechanics and maps were developed to work around it.

[–] Architeuthis@awful.systems 14 points 2 months ago (1 children)

When I was at computer toucher school at about the start of the century, under the moniker AI were taught (I think) fuzzy logic, incremental optimization and graph algorithms, and neural networks.

AI is a sci-fi trope far more than it ever was a well-defined research topic.

[–] jonhendry@iosdev.space 5 points 2 months ago

@Architeuthis

I took an "AI" class in college around ninety-dickety-3 and it was basically just a LISP class.

I dropped it because the instructor would constantly get a bit of foam in the corner of his mouth and I couldn't even.

[–] quediuspayu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

When you think about it, AI is never the correct word for anything. Only in science fiction can be used somewhat well.

[–] chocrates@piefed.world 7 points 2 months ago

I'm sad that game AI is a foreign concept now :(.

[–] cdf12345@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

And labeled as “CPU” in games

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

I mean sure if you call updating path finding algorithms AI be my guest... I would call it maths.

[–] ctry21@sh.itjust.works 56 points 2 months ago

It's always such a red flag in news articles when they mention vague "experts" but don't explain who they are. The Guardian is so bad for it, even though they're the most tolerable of the mainstream British options. A lot of the age verification stuff was a vague "experts say this will help" but if you dig deeper the experts end up being someone who's went from working as an MP to being appointed to some directorship of a charity, and not someone with technical skills that could explain the cybersecurity issues, easy circumventing via VPN etc.

[–] shapeofquanta@lemmy.vg 55 points 2 months ago (4 children)

Oh god, it only gets worse the further down the article you go.

ethics experts remain focused on questions of how prepared the industry is for sentient characters [emphasis mine]

😐

[–] blakestacey@awful.systems 22 points 2 months ago

I hate it when a website demands that my password contain at least two sentient characters.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.world 16 points 2 months ago (3 children)

When an AI character dies, what are the moral implications?

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago

That's when the AII character is spawned.

[–] Klear@quokk.au 6 points 2 months ago

Artificial.

[–] frezik@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 2 months ago

Oh, look, they made another Torment Nexus, but this time the one from Westworld.

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago

wow I hope these experts live at least another 50 years to see their ideas in application

[–] swlabr@awful.systems 35 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Yeah but will a ghost from pac-man tell me it loves me and get me to divorce my wife???*

*yes, actually. Pinky is moving in next month

[–] Wizard_Pope@lemmy.world 23 points 2 months ago (1 children)

The bastard. The absolute bastard.

Pinky is a disloyal slut. It should have been just the two of us.

This is how I fucking find out!?!? (⁠ノ⁠｀⁠Д⁠´⁠)⁠ノ⁠彡⁠┻⁠━⁠┻

[–] AnarchistArtificer@slrpnk.net 8 points 2 months ago

Don't pull that bullshit. Pinky has always been extremely clear with all their partners that they're polyamorous. If that's not for you, then that's fair enough, but don't blame Pinky for your jealousy.

[–] ssfckdt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 32 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I predicted a year or two ago that at some point calculators will be referred to as AI.

We're getting ever closer...

[–] Cocopanda@lemmy.world 7 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Ti needs to start marketing themselves as the Grandfather of Ai then.

[–] istewart@awful.systems 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

TI-89 Unobtanium Sparkle Emoji Edition, featuring a revolutionary 68k core with a fat chunk of matmul units grafted on

[–] Geobloke@aussie.zone 1 points 2 months ago

And still cheaper than what's listed at the moment

[–] CaptPretentious@lemmy.world 19 points 2 months ago

Use the AI to replace project managers, scrum Masters, and 99% of the management. Keep the talent. If you work at a video game development company and you can't actively contribute to the game, seems like AI could do your job and you can go pull yourself up by your bootstraps find different work.

[–] vane@lemmy.world 13 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It’s a cheaper way to make games, but it is going to cost you 5,000 times more to run a game.

They're doing pay later in games. xD

in other media:
https://www.vice.com/en/article/is-ai-coming-for-video-games-next/
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/ai-games-faster-cheaper-better-201128605.html
https://futurism.com/demo-video-game-characters-panic-code-matrix

I like how the article evolves from demo video game to apocalypse.

[–] RizzRustbolt@lemmy.world 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Nuance doesn't put food on the table in the third yacht.

[–] cornflake@awful.systems 3 points 2 months ago

Oh they have a nuance budget but they used it all up this year justifying Israeli war crimes

[–] individual@toast.ooo 11 points 2 months ago

*1970s

[–] iAvicenna@lemmy.world 8 points 2 months ago

"shall we ask an expert?"

"Nah lets just make some shit up"

[–] serenissi@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago (1 children)

wait this isn't onion?

[–] Kirk@startrek.website 4 points 2 months ago

Honestly a more accurate comparison to how LLMs work than what we usually hear, ie: "God".

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

And the authors name was Claude Anthropic.

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I have no doubt this is what the CEOs think and that they will try, but fat chance lmao