I think the point is your not outputting anything. For crud apps that's fine but an activity where the whole point of it is to show off your technical skills it seems quite pointless.
The demoscene is all about showing off technical skill.
Using AI requires next to zero technical skill.
That's the key.
I think the problem is that you think of demoscene as just fancy videos, but it's actually about making a fancy video while dealing with serious constraints. In the classic demoscene of the 80s/90s, that constraint was processing power or RAM. In the modern day, processing power is immense, so people make the constraints artificial, such as putting a limit on your executable size.
Using AI to produce a demo within constraints is simply not impressive.
AI isn't a tool the way a debugger, compiler, or IDE are. It's more like outsourcing your work to someone else, then taking the credit for producing it.
> if everyone is using AI, wouldn't the bar also be raised for everyone
Why would I care about vibe coded a demo when I could just ask Claude to make the same thing for me?
If you have two demos side by side, one AI and the other human, the human version is immediately more interesting because it showcases a high level of skill that you may aspire to achieve one day. The AI version is as forgettable as the person who prompted it, because it does not demonstrate that person's skill.
Same reason why we generally find weightlifters to be impressive even though machines have been able to out-lift anyone for thousands of years.
That said, I don't think most people dislike using it for tedious work or information searching. Similar to how most are still impressed by a lifter using a Smith machine to stabilize an absurd weight.
The demoparty Assembly actually has an vibe coded demo competition.
And maybe that is a solution to the problem, but it just does not interest me.
Sceners are no strangers to imposing artificial constraints on themselves. Just look at high end 64k, 8k, 4k, and 256byte intro coding, there is no real reason for it other than the challenge. So I really hope this mindset can be applied to AI use as well.
It's about how much control over the tool and the output the artist has. A photocopy machine and a pencil are both tools that can be used to make a copy of a photo. The machine is much faster than the pencil and produce a very accurate result, but only the pencil version has artistic value. The resulting artifact artistic value is a token that represents the creation process.
One is building a thing using your own knowledge and creativity and the other is building a thing utilizing the largest collection of stolen knowledge and stolen creativity
Because building something with AI is not as impressive as building something without it.
sure but if everyone is using AI, wouldn't the bar also be raised for everyone? you can output more faster and the bar for impressive is much higher
I suppose it would be interesting to have a random split, half use AI half don't, judging is blind and see what the outcome is
> you can output more faster
I think the point is your not outputting anything. For crud apps that's fine but an activity where the whole point of it is to show off your technical skills it seems quite pointless.
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The demoscene is all about showing off technical skill.
Using AI requires next to zero technical skill.
That's the key.
I think the problem is that you think of demoscene as just fancy videos, but it's actually about making a fancy video while dealing with serious constraints. In the classic demoscene of the 80s/90s, that constraint was processing power or RAM. In the modern day, processing power is immense, so people make the constraints artificial, such as putting a limit on your executable size.
Using AI to produce a demo within constraints is simply not impressive.
AI isn't a tool the way a debugger, compiler, or IDE are. It's more like outsourcing your work to someone else, then taking the credit for producing it.
> if everyone is using AI, wouldn't the bar also be raised for everyone
Why would I care about vibe coded a demo when I could just ask Claude to make the same thing for me?
If you have two demos side by side, one AI and the other human, the human version is immediately more interesting because it showcases a high level of skill that you may aspire to achieve one day. The AI version is as forgettable as the person who prompted it, because it does not demonstrate that person's skill.
Same reason why we generally find weightlifters to be impressive even though machines have been able to out-lift anyone for thousands of years.
That said, I don't think most people dislike using it for tedious work or information searching. Similar to how most are still impressed by a lifter using a Smith machine to stabilize an absurd weight.
1 reply →
The demoparty Assembly actually has an vibe coded demo competition. And maybe that is a solution to the problem, but it just does not interest me.
Sceners are no strangers to imposing artificial constraints on themselves. Just look at high end 64k, 8k, 4k, and 256byte intro coding, there is no real reason for it other than the challenge. So I really hope this mindset can be applied to AI use as well.
It's about how much control over the tool and the output the artist has. A photocopy machine and a pencil are both tools that can be used to make a copy of a photo. The machine is much faster than the pencil and produce a very accurate result, but only the pencil version has artistic value. The resulting artifact artistic value is a token that represents the creation process.
One is building a thing using your own knowledge and creativity and the other is building a thing utilizing the largest collection of stolen knowledge and stolen creativity
Have you heard of the "wild" category before