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Caution is always advised when downloading anything from the internet.

While true, this won't help most users one bit. Verifying each and every package in a supply chain is prohibitive for most users, either because they don't possess the necessary tech literacy levels, or simply don't have the time to check fingerprints for each and every package. Not that even that would mean 100% safety, because attackers could also place fingerprints matching their compromised packages while they're in control of the site anyway.

In the end the operators of major, otherwise trustworthy sites really need to treat their resources as what they are: Critical infrastructure.

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What i don't understand is where the lawyers at ?

Ai is essentially the entire digital works of human kind free and non free, linked and hence probably stored in a cloud server (somewhere) being used by LLM to produce the slop. So pixar / disney , dreamworks, Sony , warnerbros, Paramount for Movies etc.. Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment, Warner Music Group, BMG Rights Management, for Music etc.. Penguin Random House, HarperCollins , Macmillan Publishers for books etc...
... Then there is a tonne of non Western studios too, not mentioned here. And of course video Game companies.


Why not FOIA request the linked data and sift through it to see if the machines are using copyrighted content or non licensed ? It's computers .. there is an audit trail by the nature of computers.

It seems insane to me that this is where we are that a few tech companies just disregarded the Law when your average person can't even download a 20+ year old video game ROM for an ancient console without fear of repercussions or share certain footage of Nintendo game's without receiving a DMCA . Remember when we had the initial the era youtube DMCA hell (still kinda is).... what happened to those aggressive litigators ? Did they give up ? Do they not understand their content is being stolen ?

.. the tens of thousands of lawyers who should be making some serious BANK right now..

Is it literally just because of the Current US administration in bed with the tech conglomerates and giving them a free pass ? what about all the other countries involved in having their nations IP stolen ?

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While I often hear people saying they don't want AI, at the end of the day if the game (or whatever) is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

Then let "the consumer" buy it. The rest of us can be a bit more thoughtful about how we spend our money. No reason for you to get all indignant about it.

How many people don't have a phone because of some exploitation used to mine or manufacture it?

And whatabout this whataboutism?

AI is here to stay, and there certainly are productive and non-exploitative uses for LLMs, some possibly even worth the ecological impact, but that's neither here nor there. We are allowed to "vote with our wallets" and play games that were made by humans instead.


In any case, I'm anxiously waiting for the bubble to burst in the hopes it might restore some sanity to my day job. It's not a good time to be working in software development if you're at all concerned with code quality and information security. This trend has clueless business people forcing bad technical decisions on us based on hype and empty promises, and it's not going to be them who pay the price.

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I think the anti-AI crowd is in for a rude awakening. While I often hear people saying they don't want AI, at the end of the day if the game (or whatever) is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

How many people don't have a phone because of some exploitation used to mine or manufacture it? Almost none. And this is rationally WAY worse than some AI slop. People like to virtue signal they care, but if the product is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

AI will be the same. If (and I think this is a when even though I am no fanboy) AI gets "good enough" people will slowly stop complaining and buy the fruit. Will there be the odd holdout? Sure. But, and I can't hammer this enough, if the product is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

I hate how AI is being shoehorned into everything these days as much as anyone, but I'm also sure there is a way to make products people actually want with AI.

For me, the issue is not so much AI use in and out of itself. I mean it's a tool, and it's legit to use it (same as using pre bought assets). The problem is more the amount of slop that will storm the stores because of this. But I guess it will self regulate after a while, like for ebooks.

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If they release a cat version, I'll play it, lol. I'm not a dog person. But it's cool that this is free (well, the base game, anyway).

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I do still plan on getting a steam deck, I mostly play indie or older titles so I know it'll run most of what I want

Love how much developers seem to be embracing the deck eco-system

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Thanks lilovent, I couldn't remember if it was optional or mandatory.

Even if they ignore the link that lilovent posted, they risk absolutely insane backlash if they use it and are caught doing so by gamers, let alone Valve. Not sure what Valve's response would be, but the gamer response is brutal.

On high-profile games, sure, but I don't think it would bother serial shovelware makers if a few of their games got review bombed. They're already making trash as it is. As such, if it had been optional, I would have been surprised that so many chose to do it.

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I think the anti-AI crowd is in for a rude awakening. While I often hear people saying they don't want AI, at the end of the day if the game (or whatever) is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

How many people don't have a phone because of some exploitation used to mine or manufacture it? Almost none. And this is rationally WAY worse than some AI slop. People like to virtue signal they care, but if the product is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

AI will be the same. If (and I think this is a when even though I am no fanboy) AI gets "good enough" people will slowly stop complaining and buy the fruit. Will there be the odd holdout? Sure. But, and I can't hammer this enough, if the product is good enough, the consumer will buy it.

I hate how AI is being shoehorned into everything these days as much as anyone, but I'm also sure there is a way to make products people actually want with AI.

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My biggest surprise is that so many game devs choose to self-report rather than keep it hush-hush to avoid turning principled potential buyers away. Does Steam penalize developers that don’t disclaim it?

Even if they ignore the link that lilovent posted, they risk absolutely insane backlash if they use it and are caught doing so by gamers, let alone Valve. Not sure what Valve's response would be, but the gamer response is brutal.

https://steamcommunity.com/app/1601570/discussions/0/604160267118483770/

And that was a game that only used it on placeholders in EA! They subsequently removed the AI-gen placeholders and recovered some semblence of respectability, but only after been absolutely dragged twice - once for using AI, and then again for their shitty "it was only in placeholders" response.

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My biggest surprise is that so many game devs choose to self-report rather than keep it hush-hush to avoid turning principled potential buyers away.

How do we know they are...?
I mean, all or at least most of them?

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They have to disclose their AI usage since some time and that lands on the store page (where that userscript grabs it).

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/announcements/detail/3862463747997849619

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I've just installed Garuda for testing, and it surprised me to learn that Debian is still on 6.3, while Garuda (being an Arch derivative) is on 6.4, which already has some really lovely quality-of-life features. Really excited to see what 6.5 looks like there!

Garuda does some funky stuff with desktop-enhancements that don't exist in 6.3, so it's actually a bit jarring and needs some toning down (bright purple outlines on windows, for example), but I love the welcome app on Garuda which gives me one-button installs of popular software like Steam, Spotify, Zoom and over a hundred more! Quite slick, takes a lot of pain out.

Not sure if I'll shift full time yet, but it's a step up from when I last tried an Arch-derivative.

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My biggest surprise is that so many game devs choose to self-report rather than keep it hush-hush to avoid turning principled potential buyers away. Does Steam penalize developers that don’t disclaim it?

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Heck, Steam is providing devs with free publicity and notifying them too!

After W10 expiration, this is a very smart move on behalf of our Lord and Savior Gaben.

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I imagine eventually they may just add a store filter like they've done for other things, but the situation is evolving constantly and their current messaging around it is not great. Developers adding all sorts of messages from "it's used specifically in this" to a vague "we may use it for background stuff" and everything in between. The whole situation is just problematic for everyone.

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I love it! What're the odds steam incorporates something like this into it's own app native? I would hope so, but there maybe some perverse incentive structure for them to not do it?

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KDE Plasma is great! I wish we still had a KDE version of Linux Mint. I understand their reason to let it die back then (focus on one toolkit [GTK] is easier), though. With how increasingly popular Linux is getting after years of Valve efforts in the gaming department + the constant worsening of Windows, at this point the Mint team would be printing money if they had a KDE flavor.

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Regarding this news; It would be nice to have the script incorporated into the Augmented Steam browser plugin.

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I take heart from the lead at Revolution Software being candid about being bullish on AI as a means to keep the price down on remastering Broken Sword, and then being equally candid on how it hadn't been cheaper, and hadn't been very good, and they weren't going to do it again having tried it. Lots of companies in lots of industries are dabbling with AI because it's being hyped at them; they won't necessarily know that AI slop isn't good unless they try it.

To be fair, he said they wouldn't use it again on rescaling the backgrounds and character sprites, but not on other things like sound/voice.

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Great find, and an incredibly simple script to boot.

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Of course this isn't going to make gamers happy. This is meant to make investors happy.

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Are you really going to reject good games just because they dared to use AI in some irrelevant corner?

Yes.

I do not want to drink wine that only has a little sewage in it.

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The problem isn't just the lack of oversight, it's the ethics of it. People losing jobs due to AI, all the AI generation being trained on the works of others without their consent. The list of issues goes on and on.

So yes, I really am going to reject various games due to it. If it's some "irrelevant corner", it's even stupider that they used AI gen. I believe I'll be just fine.

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Devs do stupid things with or without AI, the problem isn't the AI, it's the lack of oversight.

Are you really going to reject good games just because they dared to use AI in some irrelevant corner? You're in for a rough time as its use becomes the norm.

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Wait, SOCCER MODE? It is like open source Rocket League of sorts 😄

Yea, kinda...it's a lot of fun, I play it on my pinephone pro all often when i just need to kill some time...quick and easy to jump into for a few rounds :)

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Looking forward to seeing it land on Arch. Though I'm still looking forward to seeing that initiative ([Per-screen virtual desktops](https://discuss.kde.org/t/bug-fix-per-screen-virtual-desktops/16241) ) to improve the multi monitor experience get results.

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I take heart from the lead at Revolution Software being candid about being bullish on AI as a means to keep the price down on remastering Broken Sword, and then being equally candid on how it hadn't been cheaper, and hadn't been very good, and they weren't going to do it again having tried it. Lots of companies in lots of industries are dabbling with AI because it's being hyped at them; they won't necessarily know that AI slop isn't good unless they try it.

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I think KDE Plasma is still the absolute best way to get more Windows users to feel at home on Linux.

I'd say that's selling it short. I'd been using Linux & Gnome for over a decade when KDE Plasma made me feel at home on Linux after Gnome stopped feeling like that. I expect users of other DEs, and Mac OS, will also feel at home on Linux with Plasma. It can't be overstated how awesome Plasma's pervasive attitude of "of course you should use your computer exactly how you want to" is.

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I am disturbed by the number, but not surprised. I was telling our marketing department that using the same "free" AI voice that scammers use and is likely harvested without consent on our promotional videos is really a bad message.

And they were surprised with that connection.

That blew my mind, they never thought about what it is they are presenting, and their job is to.

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I am surprised by the number...

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