Comment by armcat
8 hours ago
I think this focus on a "holistic" approach applies to everything AI is touching now, not just math. On Twitter I see people one-shotting games, or reproducing games. If the goal is to just one-shot a game using AI, it's done. But if the goal is to produce immersive medium that people can truly enjoy, admire the story and the craftsmanship, and can find entire new ways of bringing a story to life, that's something else entirely.
Sadly the experience with physical products tells us that the vast majority of people prefer cheap disposable crap over expensive craftsmanship.
The dynamics of software are vastly different from manufactured goods though. Software can be distributed at essentially zero cost so the disposable crap analogy breaks down.
Like given the choice, the vast majority of people would prefer one quality game like Minecraft, LoL, or Fortnite, vs. thousands of one-shot generated games, and looking at user playtime this is exactly what we see. If anything AI is just going to entrench these pre-AI franchises even more.
I don't think they prefer it, but the price is a deciding factor.
Most people would be happier with La Marzocco coffe machines which costs thousands of dollars, but if you get an OK shot with a 100 USD DeLongi, then the choice is clear for majority of the population.
La marzocco micro and mini are still high effort to make your coffee compared to some automated 90% cheaper delongi.
I think people sway to low effort endeavours that still have a reward at the end (even if it lesser reward than high effort).
I don't think this is really true for games, a lot of games have enormous resources thrown at their development and marketing and they fall flat because they simply aren't very fun. Then we have a million slop games that sell 3 copies on steam, and in practice only the most unique/fun/addictive games can break through.