Friday Links!
Leading off this week, a terrific story from Eurogamer about people using games to effect positive change in their lives: From virtual to reality: the people who reshaped their lives thanks to video game simulators.
From Dave Y., and it's for curling fans: Broomgate 2.0: New sweeping controversy comes to a head at WFG Masters.
From DQ Story Advisor John Harwood, and it's delightful: Interstellar Docking Scene – Recreated in LEGO // Blender Animation.
From Wally, and it's the first of many (in reference to board games): Tariffs Are Driving Up Game Prices Now.
From Leo M., and it's staggeringly beautiful: Tuesday Telescope: Does this Milky Way image remind you of Powers of 10? Also: New MeerKAT radio image reveals complex heart of the Milky Way.
From C. Lee, and it's a deep dive: Is The U.S. About To Go To War With Iran? A thoughtful analysis: The powerful force behind Trump’s tariffs. Unsurprising: Trump Supporter Mel Gibson Will Have Gun Rights Restored: Report. We're a kleptocracy now: Big brands are spending small sums on X to stay out of Musk’s crosshairs. One of many possible nefarious uses: AI Can Now Make Fake Receipts—Restaurants and Retailers Beware. Excellent: A guide to the 4 minerals shaping the world’s energy future. Concerning: What's in that bright red fire retardant? No one will say, so we had it tested. There's no compelling reason for this to happen: Toxic dust on Mars would present serious hazard for astronauts. This is incredibly unfortunate: “They curdle like milk”: WB DVDs from 2006–2008 are rotting away in their cases. So true: Nah, Man: It's not Nintendo's fault, but 2025 sure is a time. The Digital Antiquarian comes through yet again: The CRPG Renaissance, Part 5: Fallout 2 and Baldur’s Gate. This is incredibly kind: Nurse opens hotel catering to terminally ill patients. I agree; we are no longer considered reliable partners: The American Age Is Over.
AI (part three)
I'd planned on having a collection of your email today, but I received one this morning from someone who brought up an excellent rabbit hole to explore. What follows is lightly edited for clarity:
I work at one of the big ad agencies and we aren't allowed to use AI for client work unless it's only utilizing a database of assets (jphotos/videos/graphics) that the client actually owns. The concern is if we use AI that pulls from everywhere we haven't licensed the creative it comes from. We open ourselves to being sued if someone can prove their art was used for something that made it to broadcast or print. In our industry we are leaning very conservative for great fear of plagiarism lawsuits.
The creative work coming through our agency has taken a bit of a dive due to MidJourney. The creative teams can use it internally to generate images to go along with the concepts they are coming up with to sell to clients. This speeds up the process, but it's been a detriment to the quality of ideas. Before, creatives would come up with an idea and create an image for the concept in Photoshop (which would take hours). During that time they would think about the idea/concept and refine it - sometimes improving it because they had to live with the idea for a period of time (also sometimes tossing it out because it wasn't good enough). Now they spend 5-10 minutes and move on. While it's increased the volume of ideas, the quality is lessened as is their understanding. When I ask (as a Producer) "How does this work?" they have no idea.
Here's the thing about creativity: it's time-driven. While ideas often happen out of "nowhere," they've been churning in the background of our minds for much longer. Also, so much of creativity is lateral thinking, not vertical. What AI generation programs for art seemingly do is remove the lateral thinking aspect.
Much is lost.
When I write, I often don't come up with the right phrase or idea until I've gone through 5+ drafts (not infrequently, 10+). Not everyone works that way, but I do. Without that time spent, the text lacks dimension, and dimension is what gives it vibrance.
What AI can do is generate an infinite amount of content, but without the reflection and iteration necessary to drive it to a higher level. For now, anyway.
AI From an Artist's Perspective
I asked DQ Artist Fredrik Skarstedt about AI and whether his views had evolved over the last year, and this was his response:
I have experimented with AI tools quite a bit, and I am still of two minds about it. I find it amazing to not have to rely on search engines anymore to find answers to questions like "how do I write an unreal script that triggers an animation when a player steps on an object" or "explain the changes in the 2025 tax code to me in bullet points". Those are phenomenal uses for AI. We have also started working on using AI at work (pathology) and I think there's a bright future for it there. There needs to be humans involved every step of the way, but the ability for a computer to point out "hey... these cells look like cancer... a doctor should look at this" is fantastic. I wouldn't trust it as far as I could throw it without having humans look at things, but it will ease the workload of doctors everywhere when it starts to emerge (pretty soon).
I have tried using generative art tools for my game development and it's frustrating. In pretty much all instances they just can't make the thing I need and instead create something that's either plain wrong or something that is kind of close to it, but doesn't work for me. I think AI is a neat tool to generate ideas, but it's irritating and frustrating for real asset creation. So I do it myself? I don't know. It's not going anywhere and I try to keep an eye out for interesting tools, but so far nothing art related... well... one tool that I use a lot is the sharpness tools for raw photographs that Adobe introduced lately. It's marvelous. Is it AI? Who knows. All I know is that it works.
There's also the whole copyright thing. If I generate a building in an AI 3D generative tool. How do I know that it's not just something that the AI just scraped off the internet? Am I using someone's textures and mesh without them getting paid for it? It feels icky and wrong.
I don't think artists will go anywhere anytime soon. I think depending on what you are working on, AI and LLM are tools that can be used to generate background things, but there's nothing out there, right now, that beats the eye of an artist.
Tomorrow: your email, which was quite passionate (and relatively evenly divided).
A One-Day Break from the A.I. Discussion For a Screed about UPS/the UPS Store
Mom 95.0 sent me a loaf of P. Terry's banana bread for my birthday.
If there's one thing I could eat in the world, it would probably be this.
My sister bought the bread, took it to the UPS Store, and shipped it overnight with delivery by noon on Friday. It was expensive (so expensive, in fact, that I'm not letting her do it anymore, even though I appreciate it very much).
There was a "weather event" on Thursday stretching from Texas to Michigan. Heavy, heavy rain, plus tornadoes in some places. On the tracking page, it noted that the weather would be responsible for a one-day delay in delivery.
It happens.
The package arrived in the local warehouse (ten minutes from me) on Friday at 9:18 a.m.
It was delivered Monday at 11:52 a.m.
I wanted Mom to get her money back. Even allowing for a one-day delay, the additional two days were sheer incompetence on the part of the warehouse.
The UPS Store customer service representative (after being on hold for half an hour) said there would be no refund, because, in the event of a "weather event," they're entirely released from any obligation for a delivery date.
"So, theoretically," I asked, "If there's a weather event that UPS says will result in a one-day delivery, and then they deliver the package three weeks later after it sat in the local warehouse for twenty days, UPS has no responsibility?"
"No."
So a one-day delay from a "weather event" (how that's defined, who knows?) gives the carrier an infinite exemption from responsibility unless they lose the package.
It gets crazier. I called FedEx, because surely they couldn't possibly have a policy that stupid, right?
They do.
This is why we need consumer protection laws, because this is hot garbage.
I'm so old, I remember when UPS and FedEx were good.
A.I. Discussion (part one)
Sean's email (Thursday's post) was thoughtful and interesting.
If I understand his arguments, they are both ethical (plagiarism, job destruction, date center energy usage) and philosophical (A.I. is soulless). Let's go in turn.
Is A.I. plagiarism? I don't know if that's the right word. It's the sum of everything it's ever been exposed to, which is not dissimilar to humans. It's certainly imitative, which I think is more strictly accurate, and perhaps it's not possible for A.I. to create a truly groundbreaking creative work.
I don't think we know yet. How could we?
Will it destroy jobs in many industries? Yes. So, so many jobs. Does it use an inconceivable amount of energy? Also yes.
Are these reasons not to use it? No. Every disruptive technology--and this is highly disruptive---has resulted in higher energy usage (computers, as just one example) and huge job losses (factory automation, also as one example).
"Soulless" is the philosophical objection. It's not unfair in the least, but (in the music world) this charge was also leveled at any form of digital editing software ever used. When Pro Tools came out, it was absolute anarchy. When digital editing software came out for images, same thing. Digital sound effects for films? Same. Now all of these tools (and many others) are standard in the entertainment industry.
We're not stopping A.I. Period. That battle was over as soon as the first LLM was introduced. Too many people will make too much money to stop their use. That's how it's always been with a new technology, stretching back for centuries. It's not going to change now.
He closes with this:
Reasonable people can disagree about the extent to which A.I. tools can be used ethically and effectively, but I don't think anyone can argue that there's any way to use these generative tools in particular without causing at least some harm.
This where I think the argument breaks down, because it's an impossible standard to meet. Nothing has ever been invented that didn't cause harm to at least someone.
The question, for me, is not whether the A.I. toothpaste can be stuffed back into the tube. It can't. The question is whether we can create constraints for its use. This is where it gets tricky, because the profit incentive is potentially so high that it will be very difficult to draw an effective line.
I don't want this to sound like I don't respect Sean's argument, because I do. It's a thoughtful email, and he raises entirely fair points. I just think the discussion at this point might turn away from whether A.I. should be used to how we can use it to make our life better.
Friday Links!
I'm 64 today and have temporarily accumulated enough physical problems in the last 30 days to make an 80-year-old blush. We have a massive links drop this week.
Leading off this week, a riveting analysis: ‘My patient was happy with her partner of 25 years – then started a torrid affair’: a psychotherapist on why people cheat.
A tragic tale: ‘There’s a dangerous epidemic in boxing’: the tragic, cautionary tale of Paul Bamba.
Public service: Everything you need to know about bird flu.
If you want to know how an incompetent fool determines tariffs (that aren't actually in any way related to tariffs), I've got you: Trump’s ‘idiotic’ and flawed tariff calculations stun economists.
From DQ Iditarod correspondent Meg McReynolds: Chasing the Iditarod Through the Wilds of Alaska. Also, a very good girl: Meet Muppy, the World’s Smallest Sled Dog.
From Wally, and this is quite stupid: People Making AI Studio Ghibli Images Are Now Producing Fake Legal Letters to Go With Their Fake Art. Fantastic: Let Britain’s magical, mythical creatures inspire a patriotism untainted by politics. Award-nominated SF stories you can read: Analytical Laboratory Finalists.
C sent this to me and it's genuinely stunning: Excess Mortality Rate in Black Children Since 1950 in the United States: A 70-Year Population-Based Study of Racial Inequalities.
From Ken P., and we live in a police state now: Surveillance shows Tufts graduate student detained. It's dangerous and we're stuck with him, for now: Politics March 24, 2025 What Was the Plan Behind This Fake CDC Website? Leading, as always: Texas is poised to make measles a nationwide epidemic, public health experts say. This is concerning (because of the model's origins): DeepSeek-V3 now runs at 20 tokens per second on Mac Studio, and that’s a nightmare for OpenAI. Not today, clowns: I won't connect my dishwasher to your stupid cloud. Amazing! Three Hundred Years Later, a Tool from Isaac Newton Gets an Update. This is mildly encouraging: Facebook to stop targeting ads at UK woman after legal fight. Very cool: New Portal pinball table may be the closest we’re gonna get to Portal 3.
From C. Lee, and refer to my previous police state comment: Weekslong lockups of European tourists at US borders spark fears of traveling to America. Useful knowledge: Here’s what you need to know about your rights when entering the US. An excellent read (or listen): How empathy came to be seen as a weakness in conservative circles. This is incredible: DOGE to Fired CISA Staff: Email Us Your Personal Data. This is helpful: Trump’s ‘climate’ purge deleted a new extreme weather risk tool. We recreated it. Confessions: Did I Really Do That? Well, that's aggressive: Impaling for Love ― Bull-Headed Shrike. A fascinating bit of history: See you in the funny papers: How superhero comics tell the story of Jewish America. A terrific read: Inside RGG Studio: Ryosuke Horii and Eiji Hamatsu Share How the Like a Dragon Series Is Developed Quickly Without Sacrificing Quality.
AI (your email)
I received this from Sean R. after my AI post earlier this week:
As a longtime reader of your blog, I'm saddened to see you posting so much A.I. content of late.
Respectfully, there are in fact many reasons not to use A.I., from the blatant theft that powers so much of what they do (Miyazaki himself is opposed), to the ways this tech is destroying the livelihood of the creative class (of which I am a member), not to mention the environmental harms their giant data centers cause, and the ways in which they routinely hallucinate answers which can have serious consequences, especially if you're using them for medical purposes.
Beyond that, there's an inherent soullessness in even the best A.I. art and "writing," as it is the product of statistical regurgitation offering (at best) second-hand imitations of true insight and actual human experience.
Compare the image you shared with any frame of any Studio Ghibli film; while the art style is similar, what is being conveyed about the characters and their world is night and day. Empty calories compared to a home-cooked feast.
Reasonable people can disagree about the extent to which A.I. tools can be used ethically and effectively, but I don't think anyone can argue that there's any way to use these generative tools in particular without causing at least some harm.
I don't agree with everything Sean says, but I think he raises some substantial points, and I'm going to write about them next week.
Oh, the Humanity
Nintendo had their Switch 2 showcase today.
Wii? I knew it was going to be great from the first moment I saw it.
Wii U? I had a bad feeling. A very bad feeling.
Switch? I was on the hype train from minute one.
Three for three, in other words.
My initial reaction to the Switch 2? A disaster.
Besides the hardware changes (which were not insignificant but also not revolutionary):
1. Paid upgrades for better graphics on certain high-profile Switch 1 games you already own.
2. Game prices of $70-80 for first-party Nintendo titles.
3. Console price of $449 in the U.S.
If the console was announced at $349, almost everyone would have been pleased. At $449, it's going to be a very, very hard sell.
Incredibly, it could have been worse.
In Europe, the equivalent conversion to USD for both the UK and the European Union is $510.
I have an enormous amount of affection for Nintendo because of the hundreds of hours I spent playing games with Eli 23.8. It's a wonderful company.
And they've screwed up.
Tomorrow
Sean R. sent me an excellent email in response to Monday's post about ChatGPT 4.0, and I'm going to use it tomorrow. It raises some interesting and thoughtful points. The only reason I'm not doing it today is because of Nintendo's Switch 2 Showcase.
Framing
The framer called me on Friday. Here's what the game sheet looks like:
You can't see the color inside the wood unless you click on the image, but it's quite beautiful, and the weathered nature of the gamesheet turns it into a real piece of history. Family history, anyway, and Oxford history, too.
