Let me start with a note of agreement. We both agree that AI based tools are the future, no matter how you slice it. We just disagree on the nuance, of what slices are good and what are harmful.
Firstly, I agree that the synthesizer did not wipe out every musician in the world, but it wiped out quite a lot. It was massively disruptive. But the Synth also opened up whole new job opportunities and paved the way for new sounds that are completely unique to the creator. So what new job opportunities do you think DLSS 5 will create? What new lighting? How would, say… Kojima's game look different from Miyazaki's game that would look different from Rockstar or Naughty Dog or Atlus or any studio with an art department worth their salt? How would the "look" be any different from a talentless hack, like if I made a game? How do I synthesize new looks that are uniquely me with a bunch of predefined sliders built into the SDK? Everyone can adjust intensity sliders and masks. They teach that in 8th grade these days. How do I control my creative vision for every 3d model, light placement and mood if Nvidia hasn't already built it into their model? How do I input or describe occluded or offscreen objects if it's only analyzing the current frame? The approach is devoid of any nuance and requires a complete rethink to be useful for practical application that sustains people's interest past the initial novelty.
What would actually get me excited is we get the synth version of an AI based graphics engine. Where I get to author every note and call it my signature. DLSS 5 isn't a synthesizer. It's a post process overlay you choose from a menu where you can't even make one of your own. Choose film noir versus photorealistic versus anime, adjust masks and intensity and you have to live with whatever you get.
That's my critique of this approach. It's not that AI is bad. But AI can certainly be used in bad ways and I believe this particular "fast food" approach is bad. And if they ever make a real AI based "graphics synthesizer", I'll absolutely applaud it. That will disrupt the industry too, but it will enable new forms of creativity and content instead of just stifling existing ones.
Well, I don't think the Kojimas and Miyazakis of the world are threatened by this because DLSS 5 or any other similar tech works over their creations, not replacing. They can always choose to use it or not if they think is not helping their creative vision. They are also on the other side of success so they basically just need to put their hand forward and the money will come in because consumers will buy whatever they put out (not out of pure loyalty but because they have earned our trust or even faith).
However, where you see talentless hacks flooding the market I see opportunities for people that can't have the development power the big ones have to produce something of note. If the creative intent is strong, just let the slides at 0. If a creator's strenght is at world building but he can't model in 3D for shit then put those slides all the way to 11 and take advantage of the tech. To me, anything that lowers the barrier of entry to create something is good. As a consumer I only care about the end result, the tools and techniques they used are secondary to me if I enjoy the game they are putting forward.
Continuining with the comparison of the synth: before it musicians that couldn't play those instruments or couldn't afford musicians that played those instruments for their songs couldn't have some kind of instrumental presence in their productions unless they managed to get a contract or something. It didn't mean that powerhouses stopped having real musicians recording when it was possible at all. It also produced a lot of bad music but that didn't stop good music to be created as well, it just gave more tools to work with.
Media has always had good products and bad products. We know there is a lot of shovelware in our hobbie. Having development kits and engines ready for anyone to use (for free even) has allowed more and more people to put their creativity to work. Sure, there are hundreds of thousands of games that aren't worth anything but also a lot of games that maybe couldn't have existed 20 years ago when developing a game was a much more difficult endevour. Personally, I don't think the quality of the product has to be related to the amount of effort or suffering people put behind it.
I understand your concern but I believe that just because it becomes easier to do something doesn't automatically means that people with talent can't do it anymore. Quite the opposite. Talented people can also use those tools if they want to and usually with better results than without it.
I know that over the past few years consumers have been asking for shorter development cycles, cheaper games and all of that. Something like this (and other tools) are one of the pathways towards that. A 1, 2, 3 or whatever number of devs can form a studio and work on it and use this tools to be more productive and produce an even better product that if they were doing everything the classic way.+
And above all, if at the end of the day they use that tech and consumers don't want to use it they can just disable it and without it (or for anyone not using Nvidia tech) they will have an output based purely on the studio's capabilities.
