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Despite the expected contrarianism in the comments, and I promise I'm being positive here, I'm pretty sure GPT-4 did really well on this task because a quick Go

Despite the expected contrarianism in the comments, and I promise I'm being positive here, I'm pretty sure GPT-4 did really well on this task because a quick Google search shows a bunch of existing projects spanning blogs, GitHub and YouTube that it almost certainly trained on: https://www.google.com/search?q=matter.js+angry+birds+clone https://www.google.com/search?q=matter.js+angry+birds+clone This is not a Bad Thing (tm) -- it's actually really sick because you can quickly get out of the weeds and get productive, especially if your skillset is not as deep as you'd have needed to accomplish even half of this a decade ago. Nobody ever said paint by numbers was capital-P "Painting", but sometimes it's a blast to do one. I remember being 12 and making custom WADs for Doom / Hexen; my 6th grade son builds endlessly-creative and complicated modded Minecraft worlds with detailed machinery and electrical circuits and all this crazy seemingly-adherent-to-real-world-physics shit. Angry Pumpkins is arguably an order of magnitude better than simply re-skinning a Cyberdemon, because lowering the "time-to-screen" with any project (and in this case, providing a blueprint) is fun, creative, and most importantly ENCOURAGING for the next generation. Anyways, I like it!

hnlmorg 3y ago
That’s a really interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing.
epiccoleman 3y ago
Thanks for writing this. This really mirrors my own perspective. Yeah, these tools aren't exactly "learning to fish," but if this gets someone excited about "fishing', then that's a good thing. A lot of my early coding experiences were in a similar vein to what you described, altering gamemaker projects and things like that. And even now I have a lot of fun playing with this AI stuff. It can help me go from 0 to 20% on something I previously knew nothing about, and sometimes that initial boost is all I need to get over the friction and actually do something cool. Or sometimes I realize that it's not worth the amount of effort it would take to go to the next 80%. That's OK too. I totally understand the cynicism around this stuff, but for me it's like... 99% exciting and cool.
croes 3y ago
Ok, but many of these AI tools are promoted as Programming bots with a capital-P
- kevinsync 3y ago
  That's just marketing. McDonalds will sell you what it calls a Hamburger with a capital-H, but we could argue endlessly about the veracity of that. In the end it doesn't matter -- some people like it, some people hate it, it's good, it's terrible, it's whatever you at this moment in your life decide it is for you, but regardless of opinions, it's still edible. I just love what this guy made mostly because he followed through and made something, anything, and put it out there (presumably for the pure joy of creation).. and it got us all talking about it lol
  - godelski 3y ago
    > That's just marketing. McDonalds will sell you what it calls a Hamburger with a capital-H, but we could argue endlessly about the veracity of that. Well they can't sell you a quarter pound of horse meat as third of a pound of beef. There are laws about this and I believe they do deserve criticism. But that criticism is completely orthogonal to how good the "hamburger" tastes and the nutritional value of it. But personally I could never do marketing. I feel like their skills lay in getting as close to a lie as possible without technically being one. But I also think this is why people are not happy with a lot of products, because they aren't getting what they were expected. But at the same time I think companies are in an arms race that has simply been a race to the bottom where we're at or near and no one can get an economic edge simply by telling the whole truth and nothing but the unquestionable truth. The (near) liars have the distinct advantage in a world where it is impossible to have objective validators. It's why we have reviewers but why reviewers also got metric hacked. Idk what the solution here is but I definitely understand why people are upset and I wouldn't call this a fruitful endeavour where we'll argue endlessly. That's more about people having difficulties in expressing why they feel frustrated.
- Waterluvian 3y ago
  And some people think Synthesia is actually teaching them piano. It might get them into the door. It might give them all they are seeking and that’s all awesome. They might find that they hit a wall and need to go learn how to read sheet music. Or they don’t. The thing about “it’s not real programming” is that I don’t think it matters. They might just end up a bit surprised that they hit a wall and have to go back and learn more of the fundamentals.
LastTrain 3y ago
I like it too. I also wrote a negative comment, but it was about how the title was not completely honest, which is a different issue than whether or not this was an impressive feat of AI.
yieldcrv 3y ago
I just like that I don’t need to hire designers anymore I didn’t mind designers or their cost, I minded the time and the gamble involved with output close to what you imagined, and revisions I also found negotiating rights to be full of hubris and pride that caused alot of more friction. Ironclad contracts being too heavy handed with that community I’ll take the potential forfeit of copyright in exchange for instant output, i can put up a payment portal for royalty free works, i can still sell data
godelski 3y ago
> This is not a Bad Thing (tm) I wholeheartedly agree. I am often one to critique ML systems, especially LLMs and GPT. But this is my training as a researcher. I think it is important that we recognize critiques and discussions of limitations are not equivalent to calling a tool useless or worthless. It does not even devalue the tool. Rather the discussions are beneficial for two contexts: we learn the limitations to build better tools (since no tool is perfect there will always be critiques available) and we learn how to use the tool effectively (you're still not going to use LLMs to do you differential equations homework despite this certainly being within the training set). There's also the important context that we are on a tech form in a community that is well known to be inhabited by the exact type of people that build, test, and deploy these types of systems (myself included). These are not the same discussions we'd be having in the context of sitting around with my parents who are absolutely tech illiterate. My thoughts as a highly critical person (check my history, or even a very recent highly relevant comment in another thread) are "this is pretty fucking cool" (same to that very same thread btw). I hope to see more stuff like this. It is what makes me passionate about ML and it is what keeps me coming to HN. Your work doesn't need to be novel to be useful. Nor does it need to be useful to be good. I'm just happy to be seeing people do shit and having fun.
toddmorey 3y ago
Very good perspective from the creator's vantage point. From the consumer vantage point, I do worry. Even Apple's "curated" App Store is already flooded with quickly made knockoffs... as close as they can get in the hopes that they'll confuse just a few folks into a purchase. It works well enough and it's profitable enough that an entire industry does factory-style it for every popular title. (Like a digital Shein.) The internet is already full of the quick-launch low-value-add content that AI excels at creating. We're about to see a whole lot more! The good news is AI can also be very effective at prescreening and filtering out all this content vying for our eyeballs. Right now it feels like me vs the AI content cannon, but soon it will be AI filters battling AI content while the machines sort out what makes it to my digital devices.
- simonw 3y ago
  Honestly there's enough junk content out there that I don't see generative AI making much of a difference. What we need is better habits around peer-to-peer recommendation. I need people I know with good taste to spend more time talking about the games that they like!
  - TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
    Are there Reddit subs for that?
    - simonw 3y ago
      If anyone can join a subreddit you can't guarantee that spammers won't join up to promote junk. I'm having great recommendations from invite-only Discords these days.
      - fnimick 3y ago
        Not all of us have access to elite invite-only communities, nor the name recognition or clout to solicit invites to them.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]

hnlmorg 3y ago

That’s a really interesting perspective. Thank you for sharing.

epiccoleman 3y ago

Thanks for writing this. This really mirrors my own perspective. Yeah, these tools aren't exactly "learning to fish," but if this gets someone excited about "fishing', then that's a good thing. A lot of my early coding experiences were in a similar vein to what you described, altering gamemaker projects and things like that. And even now I have a lot of fun playing with this AI stuff. It can help me go from 0 to 20% on something I previously knew nothing about, and sometimes that initial boost is all I need to get over the friction and actually do something cool. Or sometimes I realize that it's not worth the amount of effort it would take to go to the next 80%. That's OK too. I totally understand the cynicism around this stuff, but for me it's like... 99% exciting and cool.

croes 3y ago

Ok, but many of these AI tools are promoted as Programming bots with a capital-P

kevinsync 3y ago
That's just marketing. McDonalds will sell you what it calls a Hamburger with a capital-H, but we could argue endlessly about the veracity of that. In the end it doesn't matter -- some people like it, some people hate it, it's good, it's terrible, it's whatever you at this moment in your life decide it is for you, but regardless of opinions, it's still edible. I just love what this guy made mostly because he followed through and made something, anything, and put it out there (presumably for the pure joy of creation).. and it got us all talking about it lol
- godelski 3y ago
  > That's just marketing. McDonalds will sell you what it calls a Hamburger with a capital-H, but we could argue endlessly about the veracity of that. Well they can't sell you a quarter pound of horse meat as third of a pound of beef. There are laws about this and I believe they do deserve criticism. But that criticism is completely orthogonal to how good the "hamburger" tastes and the nutritional value of it. But personally I could never do marketing. I feel like their skills lay in getting as close to a lie as possible without technically being one. But I also think this is why people are not happy with a lot of products, because they aren't getting what they were expected. But at the same time I think companies are in an arms race that has simply been a race to the bottom where we're at or near and no one can get an economic edge simply by telling the whole truth and nothing but the unquestionable truth. The (near) liars have the distinct advantage in a world where it is impossible to have objective validators. It's why we have reviewers but why reviewers also got metric hacked. Idk what the solution here is but I definitely understand why people are upset and I wouldn't call this a fruitful endeavour where we'll argue endlessly. That's more about people having difficulties in expressing why they feel frustrated.
Waterluvian 3y ago
And some people think Synthesia is actually teaching them piano. It might get them into the door. It might give them all they are seeking and that’s all awesome. They might find that they hit a wall and need to go learn how to read sheet music. Or they don’t. The thing about “it’s not real programming” is that I don’t think it matters. They might just end up a bit surprised that they hit a wall and have to go back and learn more of the fundamentals.

LastTrain 3y ago

I like it too. I also wrote a negative comment, but it was about how the title was not completely honest, which is a different issue than whether or not this was an impressive feat of AI.

yieldcrv 3y ago

I just like that I don’t need to hire designers anymore I didn’t mind designers or their cost, I minded the time and the gamble involved with output close to what you imagined, and revisions I also found negotiating rights to be full of hubris and pride that caused alot of more friction. Ironclad contracts being too heavy handed with that community I’ll take the potential forfeit of copyright in exchange for instant output, i can put up a payment portal for royalty free works, i can still sell data

godelski 3y ago

> This is not a Bad Thing (tm) I wholeheartedly agree. I am often one to critique ML systems, especially LLMs and GPT. But this is my training as a researcher. I think it is important that we recognize critiques and discussions of limitations are not equivalent to calling a tool useless or worthless. It does not even devalue the tool. Rather the discussions are beneficial for two contexts: we learn the limitations to build better tools (since no tool is perfect there will always be critiques available) and we learn how to use the tool effectively (you're still not going to use LLMs to do you differential equations homework despite this certainly being within the training set). There's also the important context that we are on a tech form in a community that is well known to be inhabited by the exact type of people that build, test, and deploy these types of systems (myself included). These are not the same discussions we'd be having in the context of sitting around with my parents who are absolutely tech illiterate. My thoughts as a highly critical person (check my history, or even a very recent highly relevant comment in another thread) are "this is pretty fucking cool" (same to that very same thread btw). I hope to see more stuff like this. It is what makes me passionate about ML and it is what keeps me coming to HN. Your work doesn't need to be novel to be useful. Nor does it need to be useful to be good. I'm just happy to be seeing people do shit and having fun.

toddmorey 3y ago

Very good perspective from the creator's vantage point. From the consumer vantage point, I do worry. Even Apple's "curated" App Store is already flooded with quickly made knockoffs... as close as they can get in the hopes that they'll confuse just a few folks into a purchase. It works well enough and it's profitable enough that an entire industry does factory-style it for every popular title. (Like a digital Shein.) The internet is already full of the quick-launch low-value-add content that AI excels at creating. We're about to see a whole lot more! The good news is AI can also be very effective at prescreening and filtering out all this content vying for our eyeballs. Right now it feels like me vs the AI content cannon, but soon it will be AI filters battling AI content while the machines sort out what makes it to my digital devices.

simonw 3y ago
Honestly there's enough junk content out there that I don't see generative AI making much of a difference. What we need is better habits around peer-to-peer recommendation. I need people I know with good taste to spend more time talking about the games that they like!
- TedDoesntTalk 3y ago
  Are there Reddit subs for that?
  - simonw 3y ago
    If anyone can join a subreddit you can't guarantee that spammers won't join up to promote junk. I'm having great recommendations from invite-only Discords these days.
    - fnimick 3y ago
      Not all of us have access to elite invite-only communities, nor the name recognition or clout to solicit invites to them.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]