The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
In his article for Forbes, AI contributor John Winsor describes his experience with ‘vibe-coding’, a new methodology of creating digital content, which is done chiefly through AI tools rather than coding directly. The article describes the author’s emotional high of creating a 3D platform game entirely via Claude’s Sonnett tool. From developing the original concept to defining the game’s visual style and even dictating specific mechanics and kinds of controller inputs. Within a half-hour, John has created a game that wasn’t:
…anything close to cinematic quality but the model nailed the mechanics of the game. The game included a skier hurtling down a snowy mountain, maneuvering around obstacles, competing against rival skiers, and featuring multiple difficulty levels, comprehensive score tracking, and even camera controls to zoom in on the action.
The piece is framed as an interesting description of the kind of creative endeavour such tools can unlock and the efficiency gains they can provide for game developers.
I am, however, concerned by the logical conclusion that Windsor implicitly drives us towards in his piece: the idea that nobody needs to ‘know’ any underlying hard skills; AI can ‘wish’ the desired output into existence. We’re hurtling towards a kind of ‘Idiocracy’ future rather than a creative utopia, where there is no need to develop underlying expertise as the LLMs will happily serve it up to us on a plate.
Without developing the underlying skillset, I think it’s unlikely that someone could serve as an effective ‘art director’ (as Winsor euphemistically calls it) for an AI-coded game because they won’t understand the principles of good game design. I like the idea of freeing people from limitations to allow them to create more effectively, but I think what will likely result is the proliferation of a lot of really bad games. This is disappointing because there are already so many really bad games.
Hard work makes an artist good at their craft. The doing of the thing, combined with substantial repetition, makes your output considered and, therefore, good. I often find myself writing about a topic I’m considering, and it’s in the writing of the topic that I uncover what I think about it – because my first impressions rarely stand up to the interrogation that engaging deeply with any subject entails. A senior game developer could undoubtedly use a tool like Claude effectively to code games, but it eliminates the need for junior developers. If there are no pathways for junior developers to one day become senior developers, then the industry’s talent pipeline never gets created in the first place.
I don’t think Windsor is correct; the piece doesn’t demonstrate how the “lines between creativity and technology are blurring.” What I think it proves, perhaps without realising it, is that AI, combined with the imperative of maximising shareholder value, is on the precipice of potentially destroying an industry whose output I value.
There is no scenario under our current shareholder capitalism model in which the popularisation of this technology does not result in (further) mass layoffs of creatives from major game studios, which is now at risk of being hollowed out entirely.
Consider The Verge’s recent story about Ashly Burch’s character, Aloy, from the Horizon series. A recent video leaked from Guerilla Studios, which produces the series, showed Alloy being voiced and performed solely by AI and was not trained on any of Burch’s performances. However, the studio insists this is “not necessarily something that’s in production for actual games.” That ‘necessarily’ is doing so much heavy lifting in that sentence that I hope it’s bending its knees.
I love this industry and this art form so much and I want there to be a new generation of actors. I want there to be so many more incredible game performances.
I want to be able to continue, to do this job, and if we don’t win, then that future is really compromised.
Sure, this AI-enabled future is interesting, but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t a little concerned.
I’m certainly not against the profusion of tools that democratise access. In principle, I think that’s generally a good thing. I have been noodling (unsuccessfully) with a podcast and a YouTube channel for years. Something that could only be possible when consumer-grade audio-visual tools filtered down to the public in the early 2000s. Before that, in my Dad’s day, for example, a video editing suite would run into tens of thousands of dollars and would (necessarily) only have commercial uses. Hell, I used Grammarly to help me refine this very article, and that’s essentially an AI tool at this point.
I would argue, however, that the vast (vast) majority of the creators on YouTube, and any other open-source platform, for that matter, are absolute trash. This is not an argument for prohibiting access to the tools; it is simply an acknowledgement that democratising these tools will enable the profusion of mountains of utter dross. There will be some diamonds in the rough. Still, given the absolute firehose of quantity over quality that’s certain to materialise, I think the ability to parse them will be even more difficult than it already is. The unfortunate consequence of this is that the creative output will be less valuable to the market than ever.
We’ll have to use AI to filter out the AI dross. What a time to be alive.
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
This week it has emerged that everyone’s favourite Horcrux owner and narrative antagonist of ‘the boy who lived’ Peter Dutton has been fortunate indeed with his share purchases. In what can only be described as Olympic-level, Buffett-ian levels of deep market intuition, Peter Dutton went on a “share-buying blitz” across the banking sector between the 11th of November 2008 and the 23rd of January 2009, in the depths of the GFC.
The remarkable thing is that on the 24th of January, 2009, the Rudd government’s proposed $4bn bank bailout package was announced, sending prices of those exact shares skyrocketing. Of course, we don’t know how many shares he bought or at what exact price – but given the dates, we can assume he made a tidy profit.
Dutton’s Register of Interest Updates 2008-9
Prior to the bailout, for example, shares in NAB were trading around $16, down from a high of $41 before the crisis. After the bailout announcement, shares in NAB recovered quickly to a high of $22 by April 2009 and then a high of $30 by October 2009.
Relevant share price charts
Peter Dutton, of course, denies any claims that he traded on any insider information and expects us to believe that this just happened to be the luckiest coincidence ever. Gee whiz, couldn’t have happened to a gooder boy!
It is worth noting, however, that when a party in government is crafting a broad package of legislation, especially something as consequential as a multi-billion dollar bailout, it would be sensible (and very normal) for them to confer with the opposition party. It’s reported that:
“While Mr Dutton was in opposition at the time, the Labor Government was regularly briefing the opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull on major stimulus packages, prompting Labor questions about what he knew when he bought the shares.”1
Samantha Maiden, news.com.au
Governments often share this kind of information with their opposition, as it has several benefits:
Bipartisan Support: If you can strengthen your legislation by obtaining the support of both major parties, this would virtually guarantee passage of the bill through both the upper and lower houses, without dealing with those pesky independents or speaking with Pauline Hanson. Ugh.
The Appearance of being Bipartisan: Voters are oddly horny for bipartisanship. There’s nothing they love more than their pollies getting along in Canberra. Unless, of course, they’re getting on too well, in which case it’s a secret cabal, and they’re all just as bad as each other – bloody pollies! In any case, it looks good for the party in power if they’re seen as consultative and moderate by conferring with the opposition. And of course the most important…
Not Being Held Responsible if Things go Tits Up: Fairly straight forward, if both major parties vote for the thing it’s very difficult to get hung out to dry for it later. It’s the grown-up equivalent of getting your sibling to steal the cookies from the cookie jar with you to diffuse the blame when you get caught: “Yes, we’re all in the wrong. Equally. Together.”
So it’s not unreasonable to assume that Dutton could have known that the bailout was coming, or at the very least should have known that a bailout was in the offing, given that the foundations of capitalism were being rocked in a once-in-a-generation cataclysm that can only be explained by the awesome powers of Margot Robbie in a bath.
In any case, Dutton’s denied all insider knowledge, and there’s no way of crawling into a man’s brain to know his true intentions – and even if there were, there are brains that I would have higher on my list than Peter Dutton’s. Gross.
If P Duds Did Make Share Trades with Insider information, Would that be Legal?
Well, in a word, no.
Australia’s insider trading laws are comparatively strict, especially when compared to the wild-west-free-for-all-fuck-and-suckfest that is the United States Congress. Insider trading in the USA’s congressional system is not only not illegal, it’s downright celebrated. Go to CapitolTrades.com if you want to mirror congressional share trades; they tend to outperform the market for some mysterious, unknowable reason.
Australian law, however:
“…encompasses a broader prohibition because it operates on an “information connection” rather than a “person connection” – meaning that individuals who possess information that they know, or ought reasonably to know, is both material and nonpublic are prohibited from trading or from passing the information to others who might trade.”2
To my mind, it should be less relevant to voters whether he knew directly about the bailout; the key question is whether he should have reasonably expected that a bailout was going to occur based on his privileged position in Parliament.
Even if we give the most charitable possible interpretation of events and assume that he was sitting quietly in a room, alone, twiddling his thumbs during the maelstrom of the global financial crisis and not involved in any way in discussing the potential response with his colleagues across the ailse, it still tells you something grotesque about Peter Dutton’s character:
When he should’ve been focused on helping the Australian people, he was focused on making a bag for himself. An admirable quality in independent rappers, less so for a member of parliament.
Even if it’s not insider trading (which for legal reasons, I again repeat that he denies engaging in) it’s still really fucking gross. Do we want a guy to lead our country who sees impending financial collapse and thinks, “How can I make some money out of this? Daddy’s gotta get his beak wet, num num num.”
That’s the real problem with these share trades, not that it’s necessarily illegal, it’s that it bespeaks a complete lack of character from a man who seeks the highest office in the land. It’s fucking grubby and gross.
Also, to have the audacity to get caught out and then complain that it’s “ancient history” and this is the result of Labor’s grubby “dirt unit” is just astounding. That’s called playing politics, mate and this round, you lost. The LNP owned a whole news cycle last year because Anthony Albanese (checks notes) legally bought a house with his own money – the idea that LNP wouldn’t act on this information if the roles were reversed is laughable. Expect much dirtier politics from the LNP than this come election time; just watch.
Nagy, Donna M., and Juliette Overland. “Insider Trading Law in the United States and Australia: Fiduciary Breaches, Market Abuses, and the Harshness of Penalties.” The Cambridge Handbook of Investor Protection. ↩︎
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
The Unnatural Selection podcast is produced by Jorge Tsipos, Adam Direen and Tom Heath. Visit the Unnatural Selection website at www.UnnaturalShow.com for stuff and things.
The views expressed are those of the hosts and their guests and do not reflect those of any other entities. Unnatural Selection is a show made for comedic purposes and should not be taken seriously by anyone.
