Talk to Strangers about AI

It was enlightening to see where people's heads are

I just spent a few days in Nevada for a funeral. It was good to get there and get some catharsis and closure. Which reminds me: call your loved ones more often. They can be gone in a flash, and way too young.

Anyway, one of the interesting side effects of this trip was spending time with some friends of the deceased that I’d never met till now. Great bunch of people from lots of walks of life. One in particular was this unassuming guy, whose name I have entirely forgotten now, who was at a meet and greet after the funeral.

While we were setting up the food and such, he wandered over and said, “I hear you run a podcast network. What’s that like?” And thus started a conversation I have had a million times before. But what made this one different, aside from our mutual love of GoldenEye for the N64, was the topic of AI.

I don’t remember how we got there, but get there we did, and went long on the topic. In short, it was an amazing chat with a regular guy who is not all wound up in the AI and tech world day to day like we are, but instead had thoughts, feelings, and concerns about the technology that were pretty refreshing compared to the usual discourse around the subject.

I won’t bore you with all the details, but we kinda came to the same conclusion in this discussion: we hope AI and machine learning will settle into a role that helps people spend their time on creative work, not the other way around. In other words, “do my taxes, let me paint.”

We talked about gaming and generative AI, and why we think it’s so important that games be about the vision and craft of people. And how the industry probably disagrees with us. :)

The issues around AI, especially generative AI, are complex and far reaching, and we did not solve the world’s problems on Saturday. But we made a real connection, talked about our wants and fears, and what we’d like to see in the future, and that was pretty great. I highly recommend it. And while you’re at it, play some GoldenEye with your old friends, and agree that Oddjob is OP AF.

Heading home as I type this (my wife is driving). I hope it finds you well. Looking forward to getting back to CORE content this week. We’ve got the Game Award noms happening today, more to talk about with Valve and their new hardware, and so much more. See you later in the week!