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Sacred Symbols+, Episode 363 | Moriarty x Jaffe: Total Chaos

A new year brings new possibilities... like a fresh Sacred+ episode of Moriarty x Jaffe! Today, I (Colin) welcome storied (not legendary) game designer David Jaffe back to + for a multifaceted conversation both serious and completely nonsensical. We touch on some poignant topics: The general state of our industry here in 2024, the controversy over AI art, rumors of some Xbox games coming to PlayStation, the cancellation of The Last of Us Online, alarms about slowing subscription models and the wariness of big publishers and developers to participate, and so much more. Also: Unprompted phallic discussions of a somewhat grotesque variety. We hope you enjoy the sheer chaos, and know most of you wouldn't have it any other way.

Sacred Symbols+, Episode 363 | Moriarty x Jaffe: Total Chaos

Comments

🙄Really don’t know what bringing his kid into this has to do with anything. Seems like you might need to do some healing and soul searching

Daniel E

Jaffy is always good for a laughfy

Andrew Noel

Don't do French drain, going to gouged and probably will not work

Dane Cap

Completely agree and I made this argument months ago. Until someone can explain to me how we learn things is actually different then how these large language models learn then I'll be more on the side of humans being some unique creation. As far as I can tell we are both doing it the same way. The ones who have the biggest issue with AI seem to be coming from a place in which human thinking is some sacred process that only a human can do.

Zach

I understand and share colin’s problem with AI but I’m glad to hear Jaffe present the arguments that I myself struggle to come up with good answers to in regard to how what AI does is different than what a person does. AI knows what a renaissance painting is because it has viewed and absorbed what makes a renaissance painting. Humans do the same exact thing it’s just the process is more obscured because instead of a bunch of ones and zeroes it’s a meat organ that we can’t fully decipher yet. It comes down to the soul being the only difference and depending on who you ask a soul maybe doesn’t even exist.

Eliott Giberson

Colin and Jaffe is probably the best duo in games media, if not YouTube. Thier ability to totally disagree but keep the discussion entertaining and insightful is fantastic content. I feel myself hanging onto every word.

Ben Stone

Man, It’s kind of disappointing to hear Jaffe defending AI and completely failing to grasp what makes humanity beautiful. One of the greatest parts of the creative process is hitting that wall then having that “EURIKA!” moment; having dug up a golden nugget buried within one’s self. But the more I’ve listened to Jaffe lately the more I’ve realized he’s come to prefer the easy route, he’s just given up. He reminds me of a friend of mine who suffers from severe depression.

Rio_Yeti_

Jaffe is a miserable man with a trans kid. So I don’t know if I could call him a man really. But he needs God

Brenden

Jaffe and the chaos. It’s beautiful

Remington Wilson

Love when Jaffe is on. I gotta say though… the argument that free will is just mathematical is so stupid to me. Not just here, but world wide. Like the running back argument, yes, you can add up his life experience to say that’s what led to the outcome but it’s an equation that can only be made backwards. Once you have the answer— being the choice a human made— we can do a bunch of guess work to say what led to it happening but there’s no actual fixed variables. And to have a computer that can process the data that replicates every scenario from the entirety of life on earth that led to that running back to catch that ball, is not only impossible, now and for the rest of human existence, but so far removed that it’s completely worthless to any argument. It’s an idea that we might have an idea in the future, that would require us to accomplish tasks beyond the realm of understanding, such as time travel, to acquire data from the beginning of life on earth, to explain the present moment where we’re having an argument if it’s ok for Computers to steal from artists. That’s the kind of stupid idea only a human can make.

Oliver Johnson

Very well said. I believe in the end Colin said he did not agree with Dustin even using generative fill - which Adobe trained on their own stock, making it copyrite infringement free (at least as advertised). I don't expect him to change his believe about Art as a whole, but if he opened his mind to some of the ways this stuff actually worked the conversation could move beyond this unproductive black and white thinking.

Dan P

Jaffe is awesome, love when he's on anything

Jay

Being hungover is an interesting argument for AI

Connor Clare

We need more powerful machines unless we want to play games like FF16 that goes as low as 720p to hit 60, or Immortals of Aveum and Jedi Survivor that drop resolution even lower. All of these games have trouble with keeping their target framerates, too, and there are many more examples of modern titles that look and run like ass on PS5.

MISZCZOGRZMOT

Brilliant episode. The dynamic between you two is great. Can't wait for the next time.

Gareth Handa

I love the Jaffa chaos. Never change

Glen Yelenovic

Loved the episode and overall discussion enough I felt compelled to drop in and leave a comment. I'll start by saying I'm happy to change my mind as new information presents itself. When it comes to AI my perspective has shifted and changed multiple times now. Although I don't disagree or agree with everything either Jaffe or Colin said. I do think that as it relates to Art I tend to agree more so with Jaffe's points then I do Colin's. I feel like Colin's perspective towards how AI is a little reductive and also conflates a creativity problem with what is actually more so an economic problem IMO. I also think it seems obvious Colin has not spend much time exploring how Chat GPT can be used as a tool and his lack of time with it probably contributes to his overall framing of his views on it. Particularly how "mechanized" and not human he refers to it being as an example. Even on sacred symbols recently Colin was ready to jump on Dustin when he learned some minor things done for the thumbnails involve AI Adobe technology. Dustin explained and once Colin understood he seemed to have no issue with it if I understand correctly. But anyways, from a high level viewpoint, speaking from creativity exclusively. I think most creatives across the board would celebrate the way that something like Chat GPT can be a boon to creativity itself. The way I see it however the problem seems deeply related to our economic Incentives. It is my current belief (again, due to change perhaps with different information) that if we had an economic system that prioritized human health, happiness, longevity, etc, etc the creative world would be celebrating the introduction of AI tools. Instead we live in a world where our economic system prioritizes profit above all. As such, it makes us all shit our pants as the incentive is to be more profitable and AI is/becomes a threat to jobs more or less. It also is a major threat to increasing supply in so many creative markets to a point where the money to be made is dogshit very similar to what happened in the music industry. Markets can only support so much supply, too much of it anywhere leads to everyone fighting over scraps. So in that sense I think it's a shame. Something like Chat GPT combined with truly creative people is insane. It's like you got a board room of full of people to bounce ideas off of. You take those ideas, and add to them, change them, meld them into your own. What's wrong with that?? Nothing. What's less human about that? Also nothing in my opinion. Maybe I'm wrong as my specific use cases have colored my views. But as a DM/GM for a D&D campaign chat gpt IMO has made my campaign more human then ever. It's like my players benefit from having a team of a hundred people developing their campaign vs just me. I develop backstory's and ideas in such detail and so deep in a fraction amount of the time that just would not be possible alone. But it's not like I go into chat gpt make one input and then smash copy and paste. I have one giant ongoing thread with thousands of words. As an example I'll take an idea I come up with, flesh it out with several paragraphs to chat gpt. Then I'll ask for some ideas regarding a specific thing relating to that. I'll maybe take the influence of an idea or two and build on it. I'll do that several times over in a short amount of time and then boom. So the point being, already creative people, given them AI is like putting their creativity on steroids'. I think the Neil Druckman's, Kojima's, Tarantino's etc etc of the world will just become more creative with these tools not less. It's a very complex nuanced topic of discussion. I hope Colin revisits this topic continually as the years go on. I could talk forever about it but I feel my comment is already way way too long so Ima pull the plug now despite feeling like I didn't flesh out all my opinions really. Thank you for this episode. Again it was awesome!

Nick

Jaffe designed and shipped games, he's an artist, maybe not the kind youre talking about, but he creates. And for what it's worth, I have a 4 year degree in traditional classical painting, and I agree with him.

Dan P

And again madd props to Colin for continuously shitting on A.I especially the A.I art.

Tyrone Yhip

David has no clue when it comes to the a.i art portion of this discussion. I get where hes coming from with the practical perspective. But saying creativity and art is over romanticized and there's no difference is completely nonsense. He's not an artist and he should get to know classical fine artists and get a better perspective on it.

Tyrone Yhip

Jaffe’s position, as far as I understood it, is that “life's experiences” seem mysterious and unique from the rest of observable reality because we don’t yet have the computational power to map both the seemingly infinite mechanics of a person’s brain chemistry + all external environmental inputs that influence that chemistry. Once we have the power to do that, “life experience” will be quantifiable (and replicable). I believe that he's right.

Jimmy G

I don’t at all understand the position that an AI designing gameplay is fine, but AI designing a picture is not. Isn’t gameplay design an artform, too? Great episode!

Jimmy G

Life’s experiences influence art not calculations. It’s pretty simple. Too many hoops are being jumped through to rationalise AI.

Jack Johnson

Hi folks, great discussion. There were quite a few interruptions from Jaffe that I felt did not allow me to fully hear Colin’s points. Thanks.

Andreas Tsiapis

Yeah—I feel like Jaffe did a good job articulating his thoughts about AI here. I’ve definitely become more of a believer myself—I do 3D modeling as a side hustle, and using Stable Diffusion for PBR textures has been an absolute godsend for me. Not to mention there are supposedly some great AI tools for UV unwrapping on the horizon, which will be nothing but a timesaver. Tedious, boring tasks that once took hours should absolutely be the purview of machines, to allow artists to be more creative. I think the issue is that people perceive AI as nothing but a cheat code or workaround for the ‘real’ way to do things, when in reality it can be far more than that. You just have to understand how to use it properly. Sure, there are people out there who do the “click a button one time and make an image” thing (mostly, uhhh, 'certain creators' on deviantART and r34 and other such websites, if you follow me), but when you see true artists learning to wield it—to go through many hundreds of iterations of an image or render, and to tweak the result to their liking—you start to realize there’s something there after all. Stable Diffusion's img2img capability can turn a primitive sketch into a Renaissance painting, but the coolest thing about it is that, if you know what you're doing, it will still, at its core, look like the original sketch—the artist's intent is still there, it's just transmogrified. AI is a tool, like anything else—it’s a much more powerful tool than, say, the dodge/burn/sponge tool in Photoshop, but it’s a tool nonetheless. There’s this perception that AI is uncreative and therefore the people who use it must be uncreative too, but I don’t think that’s going to prove true in the long run—the truly creative ones will find a way to put AI to good use regardless, and the uncreative ones will fade away. It's just a new technology in its nascent stage, and I think people need time to acclimate. anyway sorry for the novel, but I've seen you defending AI in other comments here so just felt the need to comment and bascally agree with you lol

Supes

Well he knows a shit ton more than you about games, regardless of you not liking his outlook, your problem..not his

Zack Fair

Fucking love Jaffe! What a way to start the show lmao

Zack Fair

As expected. Great episode. Love conversations with Jaffe

Dana Anderson

I love jaffe but it's hard to take him serious about anything when he believes boys can magically become girls and girls can mystically become boys.

larry Seitz

lol

Tanner Denso

I havent listen yet, but already know im going to love this episode. Ill report back if i can predict the future.

Dana Anderson

I love Colin’s unwavering conviction to source products from fair, honest sources. It means a lot knowing that Sacred Symbols merch and Lillymo Games are high quality products made in the best possible way for all.

Jayce Tamulevich

I love the AI topic. I have worked in both the creative and tech industries and I have a view point that is conflicting at best. On the one hand I love the craft that goes into creative works but admittedly that is probably considered self indulgent to an audience member of my works. Although, to Jaffe’s point you are opening the gates to creatives that may lack the craft and hard skills to execute great works themselves that could be very impactful to an audience. I do however ask myself, if one will require the use of AI to express yourself at a high level what could that do to us spiritually at a societal level? Thanks Jaffe and Colin for having conversations like these. A lot more discussions need to happen publicly around AI.

MrFreundly

I like Jaffe!

Anthony Palerino

I agree. As a designer I’m both informed by past works, and audiences desires. However, there are a lot of other societal structures such the economy that could be severely impacted if value of a craft is altered drastically. All to say that it’s not like this hasn’t happened in the past… it’s a complex topic for sure. One thing I can agree on is AI is going nowhere.

MrFreundly

This is fantastic, jaffe has really point across the argument for using AI really well. Great work guys. I need more jaffe x overs

Beaver diva

I made the same mistake. I'm over here laughing like an insane person on the treadmill

Morgan

I think Jaffe has some great points on AI Art. I think that 99% of human art is comprised of borrowed elements from other human art. This is even reflected in the way many describe art in relative terms, such as “Alan Wake 2 is like if Twin Peaks were a video game.” I think the main difference is that AI, in its current state, couldn’t create something as good as Alan Wake 2 by itself. Human oversight combined with AI tools will probably produce the best art in the future. Remember, there’s still that remaining 1% of art that is truly new and comes from rare minds (someone like Miyamoto, who created 2D platformers without any examples to draw from).

GameSimp

I AM HERE FOR THE CHAOS! LOVE YOU JAFFE!

Silas Koenig

I understand that it's the rarity of these conversations with Jaffe that make them so appealing. But I would pay premium to have this weekly. Pure enlightening, informative, hilarious chaos.

Chris Strommer

Colin has great opinions a lot of the time though. I vehemently disagree with him on the AI stuff but I like the fact he has such conviction in them. I get what you mean though, it's good to have balance in the force.

Dan P

I definitely shouldn't have started this episode in the gym

Alex Price

The way jaffe pontificates on whether or not he would make a good lumberjack because he has a big dick, then cuts himself off and says "listen to me" is probably the hardest I've laughed in a while. Good job boys.

ElHusk

One of the best conversations between Jaffe and Moriarty. Fucking love these guys!

Bart Van Geert

This is the best duo out there.

Ray Millares

I love this episode. Great comedy, great discussions.

Kenneth Koepnick

Let Chaos rain Supreme!

Hozi

Dredge has opened my eyes to the greatness of the indie game. It was far and away my favorite game of 2023.

Cory Knudsen

Always love the Jaffe chaos even though I strongly disagree with his AI takes. I knew this was gonna be a bit unhinged but I didn't know it was gonna be talking about seeing your dad's dick unhinged.

Eric the human

Phenomenal episode.

Nathan Densley

I’m actually surprised Jaffe hadn’t seen a guy suck his own D until now. 😅

NeO JD

God it's genuinely so refreshing having jaffe challenging colin on all this stuff. As much as I'm a Colin fan, it can be quite painful sometimes listening to him talk about stuff due to just how little he's willing to be open to other ways of thinking.

I don't like kids

People complain about Jaffe being chaotic? He's pretty much the kind of random energy Chris brings but turned up to 11. This kind of random frantic shit has been the heart of SS since the start.

Your Boi Nicky V

I'm halfway through, it's a great episode. I'm still salty over TLOU Online being canceled after waiting all these years.

TL

Think the AI discussion showed the difference in the way these guys think Jaffe has strong opinions but does realize that people may look at things differently and disagree Colin always thinks people disagree because they just don't understand, No Colin, sometimes people perfectly well understand what you are saying but just disagree, ironically this always seems to be what Colin just doesn't understand

Stephen Dow

I love the games Jaffe is talking about. But, if the industry went back to making the games we like, it would be destroyed. The reason they stopped making those kinds of games is because people don't buy them.

Jacob Lesperance

Thankyou Jaffe. The AI topic is one we are in complete alignment with, and I love the way you put it. I finally feel heard in this conversation.

Dan P

Why do you think the only way to use AI is to press it once and publish the first result? If you spend 100 hours on a pencil drawing or 100 hours to produce a single AI image, which you iterated on hundreds of times, making decision and tweaks, paintovers, adding 3D Blender technique, art directing... there are thousands of micro decisions in the process. People aren't just hitting a button once and doing nothing more like you might think. You can claim it lacks the creative intentionality of human art, but that is subjective, and also the basis of your argument.

Dan P

Love Jeffe … less penis

Jamie Luna

One of Colin's arguments that I don't understand is "AI is just looking at a compilation of art and making something from that, no creativity involved". But isn't that exactly the same for humans? Everybody draws inspiration from something. Nobody has a flash of raw creativity it all has to be cultivated from some sort of experience. Why is the human creativity valid but the AI isn't when they draw from the same inspiration?

Fat Lee Adama

😂😂😂

Meatball

I'm 20 minutes in and this is like if ADHD was an episode but I'm all for it.

Asique Alam

Colin, when you reduce AI to simple mathematical operations you invite that same reductivity of humans. If you want to be nonreductive of humans, parity of analysis would suggest you be equally nonreductive of AI. The truth is we don't really understand how neural networks achieve what they achieve, just like the human brain. It's called the interpretability problem in AI research. The machine learning process of neural networks is a black box, unlike the less successful symbolic approach to AI, which was long favored for its interpretability. Some of your comments about the mechanical, determinate nature of AI more apply to this now disfavored symbolic approach, but neural networks are at their core probabilistic, not determinate. It's why they often don't give the same outputs to identical inputs and have made it difficult for teachers to know for sure if their students are using them for assignments for instance. And this element of randomness to their probabilistic character may be construed as integral to their seemingly novel, creative outputs. I recommend this episode of Sean Carroll's Mindscape podcast as a good philosophical overview of AI https://youtu.be/aUJOcVPdDvg?si=A43W9pIVMTXAojTQ

Jake Z

One difference (of many) between "AI" Art and human art is that sometimes human beings start drawing and they don't even know what they're drawing when they start. They aren't trying to achieve some end goal. They're just drawing because they enjoy it or because they are trying to express something inside of them. Jaffe speaks about art like having an idea is the real thing, and the actual creation process is just boring technical work, but in reality the artist is constantly making small decisions as they work which gradually shape and expand the original idea into the finished work of art. If you outsource the technical work to a computer, it may look fine, but it will lack the creative intentionality of human art.

Melchizedek

Wet and wild. Jaffe 🍆

The Devmeister

I always see this strawman argument of some person who's never picked up a pencil in their life, bashing in a prompt and doing a victory lap on instagram while they sell "stolen" artwork. No, there is a finer gradient in which AI is actually used. A 10+ year art professional doesn't use AI in this way AT ALL. In the hands of a trained professional, it is extremely versatile, nuanced and powerful tool. It's so annoyingly narrow-viewed that the argument is only directed at this one use case of a typical moron - which by the way, I'm happy that people who never did art, can now make art. I don't care that they get to bypass the 10+ year journey of traditional study that I did. I don't feel even slightly salty about it. The more people being creative, the merrier. With a veteran artist who is pro-AI, the idea of what they are "responsible" for in the artwork, is a lot more nuanced and your argument wouldn't hold up. This 99% number is something you're clearly pulling out of the ether.

Dan P

Love when we get Jaffe he’s just chaotic and hilarious.

Gavin Newland

Simple comment. Love it!

USAlien

Jaffe on SS+ is a great end to the week thank you. No idea how his youtube channel subs isn't bigger as well ,check it out its great.

Perfect platypus

Okay, but what about AI rights? Assuming an AI is actually sentient and the process of an AI generating an image from other inspirational images is similar to what a human does, but faster, is it fair to pass off their work as your own?

Colin Moriarty

The problem with AI art is that the prompter isn't responsible for virtually any of the artistic expression in the resulting image, but still tries to take credit for it. What's in the image is an amalgamation of the artistic expression of the artists whose work the AI model was trained on, which the prompter isn't responsible for. That's why it feels like plagiarism. I think we are okay with AI art when the prompter is only trying to take credit for the artistic expression that can actually be found in the prompt, but typically they're trying to take credit for the image wholesale and frame AI as merely the tool they used to create it. That's a lie and a form of plagiarism, because they aren't responsible for 99% of the artistic expression that's actually in the image. That comes from the artists whose work was used in the training data.

George

35 mins in. How the fuck did we get on this 😂

Tristan Kimball

Giving creativity over to a computer to help save time writing sounds terrible to me and I would lose respect for any director that I love if I found out they did that

Walker Simmons

Jaffe rocks!

Steven Walters

This was a good episode but Jaffe seriously making the argument of if we made robots that decided to wipe out humanity, is that really a bad thing? Um, yes. If you value your own existence. Using this logic, why care about anything

PairOfShuse

I could listen to Jaffee for hours. My fav member of Last Stand Media

Robbie Agnew

Dustin will push back from time to time, but yeah

Zeke the Plumber

The best sacred symbols episode.

Peter Jansen

Jaffe seems like the only person in the LSM sphere that actually challenges Colin and it's so refreshing.

Dwindle

Jaffe if you’re reading this, your episodes are my absolute favorite! You are one of a kind in all the best ways. 👍🏻

Diddy’s Dong Quest

Love when jaffe is on

Andy

Example please -thx.

David Jaffe

I love the chaos and I love Jaffe!!

Kevin White

Jaffe does that trick where saying nonsense like it’s a fact must mean it’s true.

Gonçalo Ferreira

Here we go! Strap in.

Derek Alcott

I’m a simple man. I see Jaffe, I take my pants off.

Zeke the Plumber

Guilded Age is coming back for a third season. I'm not sure where Jaffe heard it's being canceled.

Michael Jacobson

Forget that, I want Jaffe on Snark Tank.

Colin Moriarty

If that would be in any way possible I would be so excited

Patric Bakies

When I get a notification that has Jaffe’s name it, yyyeeeessss!

Patric Bakies

When are we getting Jaffe and Chris on an episode together?

Xavier Gomez

You guys should add a bi-weekly/monthly show between you two. I love these episodes.

Yusef Nieves


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