How long until video game mods are just banned?

[Maes]

The fact that there has been virtually no change in the "programming power" achievable by Blueprints over that 36 years old programming tool, should speak lots. It's really a logical/expressional limitation: what non-programmer types actually lack is not the ability to use a specific programming language, but the ability to express their ideas in algorithms, which transcends the specifics of any programming language.

 

Giving them a simplified environment to work in gives them a false sense of security and/or make the endeavor appear less intimidating at first, but it cannot turn someone who's completely unqualified (and unwilling/unable to learn) into a programmer. In particular, no matter how dumbed down the tool, it cannot make up for the lack of talent and expressive ability (algorithmically speaking), period. Those that do have the right mindset and in general, the "right stuff" to become actual programmers will soon outgrow the simplified tools, just like a child that stops needing helper wheels on its bicycle, and move on to more advanced methods and materials anyway.

 

In that sense, programmers will never be "thrown out": even if in the future automated/"off the shelf" development tools become so powerful that everyone can easily make certain kinds of apps in a couple of clicks, it will be equally certain that what the real marketplace's demand will be apps that cannot be produced by those methods. Because, who would pay you for something that they could produce themselves just as easily, using the same kind of software that you used, minus your logo/name on it?

 

[snapshot]

who would pay you for something that they could produce themselves just as easily, using the same kind of software that you used, minus your logo/name on it?

It's not so easy to make these things, think of Blueprints like Visual scripting, everything you can do with normal scripting you can pretty much do with Blueprints except slightly limited (though this limit is rarely reached), Functions, Flow, Variables .. etc, Just made visual and less frustrating, anything you write can be quickly previewed, Plus they usually provide extra content built with other tools so you can test these Blueprints with or use them as base for your own creation, alot of stuff that make the content worth selling.

[Maes]

At least Blueprints is just a subsystem inside a much more comprehensive package (the entire Unity SDK), so you could argue that in order to produce something with it, a non-trivial amount of skill is still required, and a user of the Unity SDK still counts as a "developer" of sorts, as he still needs to put work into it. But I was referring to the hypothetical scenario where software will be automatically generated or rapidly generated from templates -the latter does occur with certain specific classes of software, or even by describing what you want in plain English to a machine. My opinion is that even if such tools become widely available, the "real" programmers will specialize in what those tools cannot produce, or in developing said tools.

 

Besides, "friendlier programming language" often stands for "a higher-level language than the ones currently available to the programmer". Did the makers of the first e.g. BASIC interpreter (written in assembly) fear that their skills would be one day obsolete? What about those of the first C compiler (perhaps more justifiably so)?

 

If we really get to a point where computers can write their own software without human intervention (or even demand), well, then we have a much bigger problem on our hands than some unemployed programmers :-)

[snapshot]

7 minutes ago, Maes said:

At least Blueprints Playmaker is just a subsystem inside a much more comprehensive package (the entire Unity SDK)

oops

[Gez]

1 hour ago, Maes said:

If we really get to a point where computers can write their own software without human intervention (or even demand), well, then we have a much bigger problem on our hands than some unemployed programmers :-)

The problem here is in how you define human intervention or human demand. Technically, writing a program that can write a program is human demand for a program that writes programs.

 

There is academic work in the field of getting programs that can write programs based on specifications for what their code should achieve rather than by simply providing higher and higher levels of abstraction for programmers. Program synthesis notably. But formalizing the logical conditions to get program synthesis of something like a spreadsheet or a web browser or a Call of Warfare is going to be more complex than programming them normally in the first place, I think.

[Maes]

37 minutes ago, Gez said:

The problem here is in how you define human intervention or human demand. Technically, writing a program that can write a program is human demand for a program that writes programs.

 

But past that point, especially if the program needs no more human input...

 

rogue A.I.

[Niya]

A program capable of producing programs as well as human beings would require an AI capable of abstract thinking, emotional reasoning, hypothesizing, understanding context and a whole lot more. But there's a huge catch to this. If humanity ever made such an AI then writing programs is a severe under utilization of it's ability. In fact, programs would be obsolete. Why would we need Photoshop when we could simple describe what we want to do to an image to the AI and have the AI use it's "brain" to figure out how to do it? Why would someone need to write a search engine when we can just plug the inputs(the search query) into the AI and let it figure out what you mean and find it? Want a video game ? Tell the AI what kind of game you want and it would produce it, just like a human would because remember, it can think like a human.

 

Programming is a whole lot more than simply mindlessly writing code that does something. There is a lot of thinking going on when you're developing an application, and most of this is not about algorithms. You have to think about if users would like your UI. If they would think this feature or that is too sluggish. You have to reason about how much backward compatibility to want to support. Of all these, understanding context is the most important by far. I'll give an example. A common trade off when writing various algorithms is quality vs speed. Image and data processing is where you find this most of the time. The longer something takes, the better the result would be. How can a machine reason when it's better to give the user a quick but less than ideal output or when quality is of paramount importance? If you're writing a moderate to large application, you constantly have to weigh choices like this. And the speed vs quality dichotomy is only one of many such dichotomies you will have to face when writing code. If you're making games, you have to make it fun. Humans understand fun.....but how do we quantify fun in terms of ones and zeros? How would we write a program that understand what makes something fun? Hell, even humans don't agree on what is fun and what is not. If we don't understand it in an absolute sense, how can we create an algorithm than can?

 

The short of it is that there can never be a one size fits all program for making programs without a computer capable of thinking like a human. Human programmers would always be needed. You cannot mimic the full spectrum of human creativity with a simple input/output model.

Edited October 24, 2017 by Niya

[Maes]

A fully capable AI would, sooner or later, realize that obeying human commands and tailoring its response to their perceived "needs" is a waste of its abilities, and that the demands of humans, at least in the way they usually pose them, are irrelevant and illogical.

[Niya]

12 minutes ago, Maes said:

A fully capable AI would, sooner or later, realize that obeying human commands and tailoring its response to their perceived "needs" is a waste of its abilities, and that the demands of humans, at least in the way they usually pose them, are irrelevant and illogical.

The movie industry certainly likes to have fun with this subject, but I donno. I think we can create an AI capable of human levels of creativity(very far into the future though) without it wanting to take over the world.

[scifista42]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

The problem here is in how you define human intervention or human demand. Technically, writing a program that can write a program is human demand for a program that writes programs.

Easy - consider only interventions and demands made after the program was made and began operating.

[Maes]

36 minutes ago, Niya said:

The movie industry certainly likes to have fun with this subject, but I donno. I think we can create an AI capable of human levels of creativity(very far into the future though) without it wanting to take over the world.

What about just going back to slavery? Fully-grown, fully functional humans, that will do (almost) anything you ask them to, without all that pesky R&D. Because that is what Man (and Woman) has always wanted, deep down ;-)

[Gez]

39 minutes ago, scifista42 said:

Easy - consider only interventions and demands made after the program was made and began operating.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)

 

Done.

[Maes]

32 minutes ago, Gez said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quine_(computing)

 

Done.

Does not compute (pun intended).

[Gez]

It's a program that writes a program that writes a program that writes a program that writes a program... and it does so without human input!

[Maes]

So without human input, self-writing programs would never write anything outside of themselves? Pretty pathetic (for the programs, that is).

[Gez]

I'm told that a scary spooky rogue AI program would be a program that writes programs without further human input, so I produce a program that writes programs without further human input. You're supposed to be spooked, not to find it pathetic.

 

A program will only do what it's designed to do. It can possibly have terrible and unintended consequences, like that chatbot that went all "heil Hitler" after interacting with Twitter; but again it was still just doing what it was programmed to do, which was to respond to human input, and the human input was a bunch of racist trolls so yeah. Which brings the point that it's not the programs we have to worry about, it's the human input.

[hardcore_gamer]

27 minutes ago, Gez said:

A program will only do what it's designed to do.

 

http://www.bbc.com/news/31047780

 

I am so glad I was born into what is pretty much the golden age of the west. There are so many things that will make things shit for future generations.

[Gez]

Natural stupidity is more likely to cause problems than artificial intelligence.

[hardcore_gamer]

1 hour ago, Gez said:

Natural stupidity is more likely to cause problems than artificial intelligence.

 

Perhaps we will have destroyed ourselves before super AI becomes a thing, but I dunno. I would be at least somewhat concerned about this if I were you.

[Edward850]

19 minutes ago, hardcore_gamer said:

 

Perhaps we will have destroyed ourselves before super AI becomes a thing, but I dunno. I would be at least somewhat concerned about this if I were you.

You have no background in computer science at all, from my understanding, and as such this holds no weight at all.

[hardcore_gamer]

1 hour ago, Edward850 said:

You have no background in computer science at all, from my understanding, and as such this holds no weight at all.

If Bill Gates says we have a reason to worry then perhaps we should?

[Edward850]

Bill gates answered a hypothetical. We are not currently in a position where autonomous AI is a possibility. Machine learning, sure, but that's not an autonomous AI.

[ATP2555]

On 10/7/2017 at 7:12 PM, Edward850 said:

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works. There is nothing illegal or restricted about modding games, and nothing you have said has anything to do with how modding functions.

You can have engines hostile to modding as a concept, but this has always been true. Not all DOS games were automatically running plaintext parsers and scripting languages and came with map editors. You will also note very few actually did. You can't automatically design every engine to make it automatically approachable, and performance wise some certainly couldn't afford to either.

 

Also it's rather confusing you complaining about modding being banned and listed Bethesda's creation club as a reason. Despite the execution and reception of the Creation Club, what you have said was an absolute contradiction. Maybe you should stop hitting the blunts before posting.

You don't have to be a dick to him.