AI/LLMs DLSS 5 will be the worst thing to EVER happen to video games

FrogReaver · 2026-03-25T19:51:35+0000

bsss said:
I do think there is some lumping together. It's fine that there's a line that's crossed in a lot of people's heads, but I think the "line" is pretty blurry in practice and not anything to hang an "artistic intent" argument on regarding the use of the technology.

(This is of course all an aside from the other problem with the "artistic intent" argument, that the artist(s) chose to use DLSS 5, so even if there was a clear line, it was crossed knowingly.)

Right. I’m with you on the particular artistic intent argument. My understanding is the developer is responsible for even enabling the feature as an option.

bsss · 2026-03-25T19:55:58+0000

FrogReaver said:
Right. I’m with you on the particular artistic intent argument. My understanding is the developer is responsible for even enabling the feature as an option.

Until proven otherwise by the Nvidia driver butting in and enabling it or something, or we hear about some studio going "bwahahaha, no artist objected to the line crossed, because we fired all the artists!", it being their choice is the only understanding we have to work with.

Tea Cozy · 2026-03-25T19:56:08+0000

Charlaquin said:
this tech seems to actually make it look less like him.

In a very early demo while in a state nowhere near ready to ship.

If you asked “then why demo it now?” I’d shrug and say “good question.”

trappedslider · 2026-03-25T20:31:23+0000

Bill Zebub said:
I asked Claude, of course.

Me: "Claude, has DLSS5 ruined Warcraft Classic yet?"
Claude: "No worries — DLSS 5 hasn't touched Warcraft Classic (or really anything yet)."

Then Claude took a break to cut down some rainforest and taunt some artists. After it was feeling refreshed it added:

"That said, the announcement did generate significant backlash from gamers and developers, with critics arguing the neural rendering alters games' art direction in unintended ways Wikipedia — so your concern is a sentiment many people share!"

Personally I was shocked. I thought Claude was wired directly into the NSA databases that have me profiled as "mostly facetious."

morning brain not work correctly..afternoon brain work SLIGHTLY better

Justice and Rule · 2026-03-25T22:12:26+0000

Bill Zebub said:
What if your design intent is "regression toward the mean"?

Given that the mean can change, what does that even represent? That's less intent and more of a lack of intent.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
I don't know, what does thsi "consistent with artististic intent" mean? And is artistic content something that is static? Did the triangle shaped Lara Croft chest area represent "artistic intent"? I doubt it. I think they would have liked to be closer to be something realistic looking. If there had been a way to create the illusion of smoother polygons by an AI, do you think they really would have said: "Oh no, this isn't my artistic intent, let's keep it like it is"?

It represented the intent at the time. Now if you want to update it, sure, you can; that's just what George Lucas did with the Special Editions. And you can disagree with his ideas, but he did them with conscious intent in mind. AI has no conscious intent, which is why no one can copyright AI art: it's not enough to feed in a prompt, but rather there has to be intelligent intent behind it. Arguing about something being "static" misses that there is no intent behind AI does: it algorithmically tries to read something and then spits out something based on what they think it might be. Again, just look at the ghosting it does with moving objects: it's trying to extrapolate moving objects (and failing) because it doesn't actually understand what is going on, but is just a machine trying to extrapolate something based on all the information that is fed into it.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
Sure, now we've got a lot more polygons, more textures, and more advanced techniques. But at all times, the artists is facing limitations of their medium, whether it's pencil drawings, water colors or a 3D rendering pipeline. They never quite get what they envision, but they try to get as close as they can within their available limitations. Especially when they really mostly try to create "realistic" graphics. If you deliberatley go for 8-bit graphics or a comic style, you might have an easier time, but even there, you might find limitations on how neatly shapes flow, or how well textures work, how nice the lighting works.

Sure, but "limitations" still require human intent. The people making Tomb Raider chose the triangle shape because they thought it made more sense within the limitations they had than another shape. Now if they went back and chose to do something else, change something, sure. But that's not really what this is doing: it's taking someone else's work and putting a coat of paint that they have no control over and will be different every time its generated.

Mustrum_Ridcully said:
I think people making artificial distinction between the imperfections AI create and that other techniques create. There are always compromises to be made. You can certainly try to argue that the imperfections of AI are making things worse, not better, but claiming that "artistic intent" seems kinda pretentious and trying to claim it's a different level of flaw than other technology has.

I think you are minimizing how AI works and how it's not a technique: it's a predictive algorithm at best, trying to identify and model things based on whatever it might resemble in the data its gone through.

Like, I don't see how it's "pretentious" to say that AI art has no intent. It can't, given that AI isn't, y'know, intelligent. To say it had artistic intent would be like saying a chair can have artistic intent. And we've gotten to the point that even the legal system recognizes that AI art isn't actually made by the people feeding prompts into it, since it can't exist without the material it's using as reference for its algorithm.

bsss said:
Not only techniques (though I agree with you) but also everyday transformations. What I'll call the "Betamax point" from way back in the thread. Is the "artistic intent" corrupted by rendering the game on a 3080 instead of the developer's chosen 5080? On an AMD GPU instead of a Nvidia GPU? Is backporting the game to Switch a compromise of the artist's vision? Heck, what about traditional supersampling? Or an HD remaster of an old game? Does artistic intent come with a bill of requirements that I have my monitor at certain gamma levels?

Those really aren't comparable given that those will still give standardized results no matter what. It's not going to potentially drastically change each time I turn on certain effects versus the next time I turn them on, or what happens if an AI starts intaking different reference material. There's a difference between "This affects intent" versus "This is randomized and has no intent" that you really seem to avoid coming to terms with.

bsss said:
I know this sounds ridiculous, because I intend it to be, but the point remains in my mind: what is a discrete realization of artistic intent in a field of infinite reproductions and transformations? It seems impossible to judge from the outside, let alone use as a rubric for evaluating another transformation.

It's created by something that can have intent. I feel like this is something people are really missing, but AI has no intent, nor can it: it's just trying to algorithmically create something. Artists have intent, even if they are limited by their tools. If you have an AI that has no reference material, then you have nothing.

Tea Cozy said:
In a very early demo while in a state nowhere near ready to ship.

If you asked “then why demo it now?” I’d shrug and say “good question.”

Because they need to justify the capital AI is taking in for the losses it is generating. Bigger question is why anyone would honestly defend this stuff.

bsss · 2026-03-25T23:23:17+0000

Justice and Rule said:
There's a difference between "This affects intent" versus "This is randomized and has no intent" that you really seem to avoid coming to terms with.

That difference does not matter to my inability to appeal to the "artistic intent" of another person once they made their choice. They could have made all the art a big "use your imagination" texture floating in 3D space and I'd still have no ability to claim the artistic intent was anything other than what the artist did.

Justice and Rule · 2026-03-26T01:12:43+0000

bsss said:
That difference does not matter to my inability to appeal to the "artistic intent" of another person once they made their choice. They could have made all the art a big "use your imagination" texture floating in 3D space and I'd still have no ability to claim the artistic intent was anything other than what the artist did.

No, and at this point it's clear enough to be recognized in the law: people who use AI-generators for art have no claim to the art because they aren't actually the "artist" at that point. Anything they want doesn't matter because they've basically given it to a machine to do, thus being closer to a commissioner of art than the artist. This is why it's fundamentally different than other tools.

FrogReaver · 2026-03-26T01:15:19+0000

Justice and Rule said:
No, and at this point it's clear enough to be recognized in the law: people who use AI-generators for art have no claim to the art because they aren't actually the "artist" at that point. Anything they want doesn't matter because they've basically given it to a machine to do, thus being closer to a commissioner of art than the artist. This is why it's fundamentally different than other tools.

This seems like it’s meant for a different thread?

Justice and Rule · 2026-03-26T01:28:59+0000

FrogReaver said:
This seems like it’s meant for a different thread?

No, I mean what I said. It's for this thread. I'm bringing up the law because at this point talking about "artistic intent" when using these tools is an oxymoron: AI can't have intent. It strips it out.

FrogReaver · 2026-03-26T01:29:57+0000

Justice and Rule said:
No, I mean what I said. It's for this thread. I'm bringing up the law because at this point talking about "artistic intent" when using these tools is an oxymoron: AI can't have intent. It strips it out.

Okay. The person using it can though.