Shit's on fire yo
People around me have been pushing for AI for years now. I frequently work with futurists and sociopaths, work gives us big AI subs, a lot of devs got tempted. It was never forced on us, but the workload just kept getting bigger. So we had massive adoption, and most were relatively happy with how fast they could ship.
Then money got rarer. And the workload got bigger. And a player slopped his way to a feature we've been working on for 6 months. We have non technical people clank their ideas, and people in charge that don't understand that quality takes time. Yesterday, some dude one shot a remake of Jazz Jackrabbit with Claude. Think about the money bro.
Devs are all depressed, dreading when we'll get fired, or how much AI we'll need to use to keep up with the pace. I can see their faces, the despair. The helpers, amazing persons, either quit or got fired. The money is running dry.
We know we're not useless yet. The slop quality is never good enough to be shipped, thankfully. Some of us have been rocking AI psychosis for months now, doing unpaid overtime, making sure we look good so not to get fired. We've done every single thing the AI bros want us to do, to be able to keep our jobs.
Meanwhile, the world looks like a desolate wasteland.
I'm sitting here, smoking under the porch, heavy rain outside. I'm thinking about what to do. How do I support my family? How can I survive when I inevitably get thrown out for being too expensive? How can I keep working in computers, in the games industry if this is our future?
I don't know.
10 years old me making shitty doom maps and mods on a pentium 133, looking at the future with hope and creativity. 35 years old me looking back at all I've accomplished, feeling like I'm still in the same place.
Just worse off, in pain, wishing for anything to brighten my day.
Take care of yourselves and your loved ones.