Jump to content
Search In
  • More options...
Find results that contain...
Find results in...
Captain Toenail

Some thoughts on AI and the Doom Community

Recommended Posts

Hey guys, I've just returned to the forum and I'm seeing a lot of anti-AI shitposts, cognitive dissonance, mind-reading, and knee-jerk reactions. I'm guessing these were triggered by my post a few days ago.

 

 

I just want to re-emphasise some points, and also make some comments on the community as a whole.

 

 

First of all, the rate of change is really accelerating at the moment. We've now got rockets that can land themselves, actual useable commercial VR goggles, brain implants that can cure paralysis, self-driving cars, and other exciting stuff coming very soon like safe, truck-sized nuclear reactors. Not to mention all the crazy headlines like multiple assassination attempts on former presidents, exploding radios, all sorts of crazy shit. I don't know what the next headline is going to be. The point is we are moving into a quickly changing and evolving world and we all have to keep adapting now. Personally, I would be more worried about the threat of explosive drone swarms, or someone cooking up a new virus in their bathtub at the moment, than generative AI artworks.

 

One of these new technologies is of course generative AI, and it is a fascinating and useful TOOL. It is a digital tool like any other, like spellcheck, like Photoshop's quick fill, like a screwdriver. But tools require skill to use correctly. You can post lazily generated blocks of text, or large garbled images, or be bombarded by terrible essays - this is more a lack of imagination and skill to develop the correct superprompts, rather than a criticism of the tech itself. Some of the early jailbreaks I've seen to get around the crude censorship rules were works of genius. You can get some fantastic results if you structure your prompt in a certain way, using lots of visual language. If you are a strong writer or persuader, you can become a strong prompt writer, the skills overlap - it's actually quite fascinating if you look into it. I'm trying to reframe this because I see a lot of people stewing in anguish (just see the recent mental health thread for example) - you need to reframe things in your head in a positive manner or you will always be miserable, and reduce your exposure to things that bring you down, like sad music, or constant exaggerated headlines about climate crisis.

 

I myself have some artistic leanings, having studied art in the past, and dabbled with graphics, animation, video editing, pencil drawings, painting, and of course Doom mapping, so I can understand the feeling of 'looming doom' approaching - who wants to be washed away in a sea of 'AI slop'? But you have to understand that it is just another tool for your arsenal, and that in comparison, human made art will be valued more by people and society in general just because of basic human psychology. Would you rather have an AI generated painting hanging on your wall, or something that was made-by-hand? I know something drawn or painted by hand would be much cooler and have more value to the owner.

 

At the moment, the tool lends itself quite well to generating things like gargoyles, demonic faces etc. - if you take the time you can curate these, cut them out and integrate them, just like taking part of an image from a stock photo (how most of the original Doom textures were created). Its a big time saver and makes things more accessible. I think its really cool and I'm kind of sad to see such a regressive and emotional attitude developed here on Doomworld towards it, especially from formerly cooler heads. I've read that a similar thing happened when digital art tools first came onto the scene, but now I would say most artists are using that software daily without issue.

 

 

 

As to the community itself, I cant be bothered with online drama and histrionics which is why I'm usually quiet and avoid the private groups, but I have some things I feel I need to mention, for the good of the community as a whole. I've been around here a long time, making wacky mods and maps. (and stuck with this awful username throughout lol) I love the game, having started with Doom95 and the Maximum Doom CD, and I have an itch to feel useful and busy, which is why I have contributed to so many community projects and made so many textures and new monsters and stuff over the years. If I identify a niche that could be useful to mappers or modders (a new prop, texture, weapon etc.), I'll dive in their and cook something up. I'm kind of nostalgic for those old Skulltag mods that would have all sorts of silly chaotic things going on tbh!

 

I've always been lurking in the background but I only seriously returned to the hobby when Covid happened, having a lot of spare time because of the crazy reaction locking everyone inside. Though I've always been a bit of an outsider on the edge (never taking part in IRC/Discord etc.), I immediately noticed a change in atmosphere and tone in the community when I returned. Everything was a lot more competitive, a lot of cool and funny people I had mapped with in the past were now banned, and there is a general spiteful and authoritarian atmosphere. I especially didn't like it when I saw all the manufactured drama take place to ban Tormentor667, a creative guy who has led many community projects, and has hosted all my silly bestiary stuff over the years, and even gave me a chance to take part in ZPack, even if my skills probably weren't up to it at the time. The reaction here was so OTT - I lost a lot of respect there, not for Torm for maybe copying some line geometry from something he clearly loved, but for the people eager to cancel what they see as a rival at the drop of a hat. That's really scummy behaviour and needs to be called out. The community has always had its cliques and cool clubs, but to see overt political moves like this in a hobby space was disturbing, especially from people I had previously enjoyed working with. I was actually very surprised to receive a Cacoward, considering all this politicking that goes on in the background! Lets get things in perspective - these are Doom maps, it's a hobby, not international politics XD

 

I'm not sure what has triggered this change in atmosphere on the forum, it could be the growing influence of social media making everyone a bit more narcissistic, clickbait videos brainwashing everyone to extreme opinions, the normalisation of overt lawfare in American politics, or a reflection of society as a whole, but its not cool, and honestly pretty lame. I suspect the main driver here is the monetisation and commercialisation of the hobby. As soon as money becomes involved anywhere, the incentives quickly change.

 

Communities and friendships thrive on reciprocity, without it this place is going to stagnate and increase in hostility, and Doomworld is going to lose all respect as a centre for all things Doom related. I already see it happening with splinter forums emerging, and people hiding on Discords or posting anonymously, scared to voice an opinion (remember, a forum is supposed to be a "a meeting or medium where ideas and views on a particular issue can be exchanged" - you can't be a forum if unpopular opinions shut down discussions and get people banned) Sad because I love this game, I loved this forum, and I love all the neat things people come up with, whether its making crisp classical maps or new zany zscript stuff that pushes the boundaries. I love it all and there are some seriously talented people here!

 

 

Anyway, thanks for reading my blogpost and listening to my TED Talk! I hope it has reframed the situation for some people, lessened their anxiety and given some insight into some of the hidden machinations of the community I have observed.

 

 

TL;DR - the AI stuff is pretty cool (look into it), artists don't really need to worry, and there is a growing toxic atmosphere in the community.

 

 

[ I wrote this all by hand btw, though I admit I used a spellchecker. Just like my last post :-) ]

Share this post


Link to post

People are going to have kneejerk reactions to this stuff for quite a while. It will calm down with time as the technology becomes more integrated into everything.

Share this post


Link to post
16 minutes ago, flamepanther said:

Most people aren't "against AI" or even against all generative AI so much as against its misuse, overuse, and ethically questionable training.


Y'know what, I'm going to hard-agree here in principle actually. Notwithstanding the stolen training data, my partner; who is autistic and dyslexic, sometimes has a hard time with words when stressed; has used ChatGPT for things like filling in text fields of forms or even to prepare how to ask a certain question to a cashier or someone else in a public capacity. I'm aware of the good it could do as a tool. If, y'know, it were trained and utilised right.

And yet it's not. And for creativity it absolutely fuckin' blows. Don't give me that "I have some artistic leanings" justification, I'm an artist too. It's shit.

Share this post


Link to post

"It's just a TOOL bro! Human inventions exist in a platonic moral vacuum!" Is just "guns don't kill people, etc. etc." for the new millennium. It's a non-sequitur that demonstrates such a brazen obliviousness to the actual issues in question that it's difficult to even respond to.

Share this post


Link to post
46 minutes ago, "JL" was too short said:


94sahs.jpg.f97387b6083e7bcfbda04aa7aaab49bc.jpg

For real, those types always love to resort to the "it's just my opinion!!!" excuse, and it bothers me to no end. Facts aren't fucking opinions you can just "disagree" with if you don't like them. You might as well go "disagree" with gravity and jump down a cliff going by that logic. The realm of opinions exists in matters of shit like "what is your favorite ice-cream flavor?", absolutely not in questions of "do other people deserve the right to exist and have dignity?". Bigotry is wrong no matter what: the existence of others is not a political question, and specially not for others to "disagree" with.

Share this post


Link to post

AI can be powerful and useful but AI doesn’t belong in the creative space such as this.
 

Imagine releasing something that is all made out of AI and slapping your name on it as if it’s some creative project you made just from typing dumb shit into a prompt. You didn’t make it, and don’t deserve credit.
 

You’re basically just the “ideas guy” on copium at that point, and that’s just for people who aren’t trying to pass off AI bullshit as their own work hoping the AI aspect goes unnoticed. 

 

So no, I think people are right to think people rubbing their nips off to AI are weird and need to actually try to do shit for themselves and not be lazy talentless hacks. 
 

Just my opinion anyways. 

Edited by GibFrag

Share this post


Link to post
45 minutes ago, Gifty said:

"guns don't kill people, etc. etc." for the new millennium.

"Guns don't kill people,

 

I kill people,

 

with guns"

Share this post


Link to post

Some thoughts:

 

"This doesn't look like Doom discussion, looks like a EE topic"

 

and prayers:

 

"Lord Baron Knight of Hell please protect DooM projects from the sins of AI"

Share this post


Link to post

I don't have much to add, I think the people above me articulated the key points better than I could. What is perhaps worth noting is that the perceived "toxic atmosphere in the community" is a rather justified reaction to the AI hype driven by very dubious and self-interested tech bros who like to watch the line go up and care very little about anything else. Although a piece of technology is "neutral" when completely separated from a context, it's impossible in practice to extricate it from the political, social and cultural contexts in which it exists.

 

This community is very old and its principled stance on certain things like art and creativity is one of the reasons why I'm proud to be part of it. It's basically a self-sustaining subculture which is quite happy to be "left behind" by not normalizing its relationship with hyped products and buzzwords coming out of a hypercapitalist space. That's my view of things at least.

Share this post


Link to post

I want AI to be used to upscale old chunky model rip sprites, especially the ones from Aeons of Death and the AlandoGuns series, which were made before MD2/MD3 assets were being widely used in GZDoom mods today.

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, esselfortium said:

But I don't want the future of this site to be having to wade through 1000 pieces of carelessly-generated slop to find one thing that was created by a human.

 

I'd say that's a fair reason, which is why I'm trying to make the distinction between stuff that's generated with some thought going into it, and lazy 'AI slop'.

 

2 hours ago, esselfortium said:

In the early 2010s, Doomworld had a serious problem with far-right trolls, which made it notably less than welcoming for anyone outside of a certain narrow demographic.

 

Certainly, back in 2010, there were a lot of trolls. To frame them as far-right though? I highly doubt genuine Nazi or KKK type people were here on Doomworld. To me, Doom has always been a left-leaning hobby (all the demonic imagery is partly of that mocking American fundies attitude of the 90s after all) A troll is going to post inflammatory material to get a reaction and tune it to their target, no matter what that is. It's playing a character to get a reaction. As horrible as they can be (often sociopathic personalities) sometimes you need some trolls around to keep people and egos in check. I know I was trolled a few times over the years, and honestly, looking back, some of them were quite funny. That's partly why satire and comedians exist. Court jester anyone?

 

3 hours ago, esselfortium said:

The idea that Tormentor was "cancelled by rival mappers" is simply wrong. 

 

I don't know the full story or beef between yourself and Torm, but he's always treated me well and I respect that, so to see him so callously dogpiled on was very creepy when I returned. My assumption here was there was always bad blood between yourself and Torm. Even if Torm has been a naughty boy copying linedefs, I wouldn't say that justified the massive outcry. You have to understand, to the outside world, and someone who recently re-joined at the time, that's what it looks like

 

3 hours ago, esselfortium said:

Which splinter forums are you referring to

 

The various Discord channels, DoomerBoards obviously (btw, banning their stuff from being featured on this site was kind of lame. Maybe you find those guys can have abrasive personalties but I don't think they are intentionally malicious, more holdouts from an earlier culture of the internet), there's also the anonymous discussion on /vr/. The community has become very fragmented in recent years. A lot of stuff goes on behind closed doors. There's a lack of transparency. It was always split up between various ports but not to this degree.

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

I'm actually proud of being different, y'know. ... the mainstream, always tends toward generic. Unimaginative. Safe.

 

I totally agree here. I think we all have to be a little different to spend so much time playing a 30 year old game. I imagine I'm certainly a little eccentric myself (probably a contrarian, given this thread lol) And you're totally right about the mainstream - have you seen the list of upcoming streaming shows? What Are Next?

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

Now, generative AI cannot create new things.

 

I'm not fully convinced on this one - I mean there may be infinite combinations but everything is always going to be derivative in some way. I mean, inspiration always comes from somewhere else. I think the issue here is whether you believe humanity has some sort of divine spark or not. if you do, I think that's a good belief to motivate you in your work.

 

2 hours ago, Jayextee said:

environmental cost

 

Lots of exciting new possibilities incoming very soon - portable nuclear reactors, solar power etc. Future is actually looking bright! Don't let the doom and gloom headlines get to you.

 

1 hour ago, "JL" was too short said:

"What unpopular opinions"

 

Well I'm surprised this thread for example is still going, to be honest. You need areas of open discussion or things descend into stifling hugboxes. Which is what I am worried is happening to the Doom community. I don't want this place to end up really lame groupthink zone where nothing interesting happens, like the majority of Reddit for example.

 

1 hour ago, flamepanther said:

when there are people who feed a prompt to a model, let it generate a whole image for them, do nothing else and call themselves an artist

 

I understand where you are coming from, but this kind of does a disservice to prompt-engineers - I've seen some crazy prompts created to get results - some of it very creative. Have you seen the older jailbreaks like DAN? It's quite funny how you sometimes have to trick, bribe, persuade the machine to get the intended result.

 

2 hours ago, flamepanther said:

while my views on AI are nuanced

 

This triggered my basic ChatGPT senses lol

 

1 hour ago, Jayextee said:


Notwithstanding the stolen training data

 

That is a tricky issue. I'm not sure how this will get resolved. I imagine you may be able to start charging a fee to let your art be ingested by future models. Could be a good money spinner.

 

1 hour ago, Skeletowned said:

the nakedly inflammatory bits of rage-bait

 

Nothing I wrote was intended to intentionally cause rage. maybe a few lines were cheeky lol. I don't really have the kind of personality that enjoys trolling others intentionally

 

1 hour ago, Skeletowned said:

soon-to-burst AI bubble

 

It was certainly overstated, but it's not going away. I mean, we could have bipedal robots in our homes in a couple of years. That's insane!

 

1 hour ago, flamepanther said:

but shoehorning it into absolutely everything is unhelpful and obnoxious.

 

Yeah that's pretty obnoxious, but CEOs like to have the latest shiny thing. 

 

1 hour ago, Gifty said:

"It's just a TOOL bro!

 

What is it otherwise? I mean guns are a tool too, one that can be used to horrific ends. Tools require responsible users. I can definitely see an 'AI license' emerging to further monetise access to models, and to discourage bad actors from using them. And to increase government control.

 

1 hour ago, HiMyNameIsChair said:

TBH i don't know where this "competition" you mentioned is coming from???

 

There is a cruel streak to the Doom community, it's usually not apparent to newcomers. Most of us are pretty cool though. It took me a while to understand what was going on. Certainly in my experience there was more comradery ten years ago, despite all the other issues. btw I love the PUSS guys - their projects are very imaginative and novel. I'm proud to have contributed to some of their map sets, and they really helped me develop my mapping skills in recent years.

 

1 hour ago, HiMyNameIsChair said:

There is no soul, no human touch, no emotion poured into it, no purpose to its creation, no story to tell.

 

I mean, if we aren't all NPCs in some sort of bizarre simulated world already. A very intriguing (if disturbing) theory.

 

 

1 hour ago, GibFrag said:

Imagine releasing something that is all made out of AI and slapping your name on it as if it’s some creative project you made just from typing dumb shit into a prompt. You didn’t make it, and don’t deserve credit.

 

Yeah I imagine it would be similar to Oblige maps. What I am arguing for is for using components of generated imagery to help build new textures.

 

48 minutes ago, Jimmy² said:

blindsided opportunists in management intend to weaponise these sophisticated algorithms to obsolete the human work force

 

Of course that's just human nature to get more bang for less buck. We might reach an amusing point where AI are churning out AI content for AI to consume, completely rendering all online content meaningless, meanwhile everyone else has left the internet behind and are now living in the real world, attending real performances etc.. Maybe in a way that's ironically a good outcome

 

34 minutes ago, Benjogami said:

Is this some new self-help that's going around? Is there any real evidence to back it up? Seems suspicious.

 

Its old advice that is getting new exposure. You can use music like a drug - listen to upbeat stuff and you will feel better, watch comedy to lighten your mood etc. I definitely recommend it. No need to be suspicious.

 

 

 

It took me ages to do answer all these quotes, interesting discussion!

Share this post


Link to post

Taking credit for AI - generated art as if you made it yourself is pretty scummy. But as long as you acknowledge that it's AI - generated and explain that all you did was type in a prompt, I don't really see the problem.

 

I've never had any talent for visual art (I can only draw stick figures at best). I can imagine cool scenes in my head but before recently I had no way to ever show them to anyone else. So say that I wanted to see a picture of, for example, Doomguy rampaging through a Borg Cube from Star Trek, I would either have to hope someone else had already drawn it, or I was out of luck. But now, if I wanted to create that, I could.

 

 

Share this post


Link to post

I've learned in my time that any technology being forced down our throats as "the future" and we'll regret not being "early adopters", it's shit technology, regardless of how technically impressive or """revolutionary""" it is.

 

28 minutes ago, Captain Toenail said:

Certainly, back in 2010, there were a lot of trolls. To frame them as far-right though? I highly doubt genuine Nazi or KKK type people were here on Doomworld.

 

Yikes my guy. You need to surround yourself with better people.

Share this post


Link to post

To be honest...I only used It twice for spelling and punctuation. I am still ashamed of myself.

Share this post


Link to post
1 minute ago, kevansevans said:

I've learned in my time that any technology being forced down our throats as "the future" and we'll regret not being "early adopters", it's shit technology, regardless of how technically impressive or """revolutionary""" it is.


Don't forget to frame every reasonable objection as a "knee jerk reaction" apparently.

Share this post


Link to post
Just now, Jayextee said:


Don't forget to frame every reasonable objection as a "knee jerk reaction" apparently.

 

It's a popular trick, to frame any dissent as unreasonable and irrational. It's pretty much a bright-red signal that the poster is neither interested in debate nor respecting those he's talking to.

Share this post


Link to post
2 hours ago, flamepanther said:

 

I would suggest that integrating it into everything is part of the issue right now. AI has a lot of positive applications, but shoehorning it into absolutely everything is unhelpful and obnoxious.

 

Yeah, I misspoke, it shouldn't be in EVERYTHING, but I'm just saying I think all the pushback will calm down once people figure out what it is and isn't good for.

Share this post


Link to post
19 minutes ago, Captain Toenail said:

 It's quite funny how you sometimes have to trick, bribe, persuade the machine to get the intended result.

So prompt engineers are artists of tricking, bribing, and persuasion. In the words of Elon Musk, "Interesting."

 

Okay flippancy aside, doesn't this seem like a red flag? Sci-fi luminaries have been warning us about the consequences of treating robots/androids/AIs poorly for as long as the genre has existed, and yet being a manipulative prick to ChatGPT to get what you want is being touted as a good thing? ChatGPT doesn't have feelings to hurt or rights to stomp on, but the people doing this behavior are training themselves to be manipulative anti-social freaks. Don't you think this will transfer to how they interact with other humans? How about in the promised AI future where androids are indistinguishable from humans and people are still treating them this way?

 

It's creepy behavior and it's disturbing that it's not seen that way more widely.

 

And btw I don't think the guardrails that are slapped hastily on LLMs are good. I've tried using ChatGPT to produce some characters and scenes and found the results terribly sterile and boring. It refuses to generate anything remotely gritty or upsetting, characters that should hate each other end up talking it out. It's fucking stupid. I'm sure there are very talented prompt engineers that can manipulate gritty scenes out of it, but like I said above, I find such manipulation extremely distasteful. The solution isn't to degrade yourself to work around the problem, it's to walk away.

Share this post


Link to post

@june gloom the link between AI bros and the crypto world (or Web 3.0 more generally) is very important, thanks for this. I'm reminded of Folding Ideas's video on NFTs and the wider goal of "financializing everything", which is sinister as hell. There's a lot to be said and I don't wanna derail the thread, but I think the superficial appeal of AI is not too dissimilar to the initial promise of NFTs to help struggling visual artists. All BS of course, creators always end up getting shafted, so I'm pretty glad to see some well-founded scepticism.

Share this post


Link to post
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
×