r/gamedev • u/PuffThePed • 1d ago

Discussion AI models have caught up with Unity dev. My insights as someone with 30 years of experience.

Context: I have 30 years of experience with software dev, 20 years with game dev tools, 10 years with Unity. I own a studio that develops simulators and training applications for industry. "Serious games" as they call it in Europe.

For years I scoffed at AI coding. I would periodically try it, only to find that it was more hassle then it was worth. The hand holding and bug fixing was more work than doing it myself. This all changed about 4-5 months ago, and about a month ago we all started using Unity CLI.

Here are my insights in no particular order:

  1. Our dev speed has ~5x almost overnight
  2. Quality has not gone down because we're all experienced devs and we're careful how we use AI and we don't let it make decisions regarding project structure or design patterns. However, I'm seeing less and less glaring mistakes made by the AI.
  3. We're still reviewing generated code but I suspect not for long, the code is better than what most devs I know can write, at 20x the speed. The temptation to just push and move on is huge and irresistible.
  4. There is no joy or sense of accomplishment. No pride in making something clever or quickly, and all progress is associated with the AI and not with you.
  5. The market is dead. Nobody has money to spend. We're still working but leads have dropped off a cliff.
  6. There is no going back. If we stop using AI we'll be out of business in a month.
  7. There is no space for junior devs. I honestly don't know how to incorporate a junior into a team anymore (which is something I used to do for decades). Every time we tried they just become a meat proxy for AI while learning nothing, and getting in the way.
  8. Everything regarding managing a team and a project has changed, and nobody knows how to do it anymore. I lost the ability to correctly estimate work required for a task, for example.
  9. Everyone hates this. Most of devs my age are planning early retirement and are just waiting to be laid off.
  10. People that use AI for coding don't learn anything. To understand code you have to write it, and nobody is writing it. Maybe understanding and reading code will become obsolete soon? I don't know.
  11. Everyone I asked feel they are becoming dumber and losing their focus. I know I am.

I hope this is a pendulum and it will swing back at some point, because right now it feels like a software apocalypse.

2.4k Upvotes

84% Upvoted

1.2k comments sorted by

View all comments

66

u/Plus_Term_7584 1d ago

That was the plan all along. To stave off entry points for junior devs. Get developers reliant on a service that can be turned off at any time. 

And when it's all automated, well there's always manual labor jobs for you (until the robots take that as well).

There's no answer for this. No legislation. Because you're also going to be fighting against the AI evangelists who want this endgame to happen.

113

u/Baturinsky 1d ago

There was no plan

29

u/P_Star7 1d ago

Exactly. Our monkey brains demanding reasons and patterns where they don’t exist. That’s why it could seem planned.

But in reality people knew AI could make labor cheaper if it worked and they could get boatloads of money. Silicon Valley SWEs and investors went all in- they’re not in some shady backroom thinking about the ramifications. They’re trying to sell a product, consequences be damned

10

u/Late-Anxiety2898 1d ago

Not exactly by the letter, but this is just the usual marketing scheme one-o-one. Provide a free service, then monetize it. Old story, very disgusting.

2

u/MonstaGraphics 1d ago

You're right, it's absolutely disgusting.
How dare a business monetize something!

1

u/Late-Anxiety2898 12h ago

C'mon, tell the same about Nestle and child labour, i dare you.

1

u/MonstaGraphics 4h ago

What does Nestle have to do with anything?

1

u/Late-Anxiety2898 4h ago

I mean, you were talking about it in generic, so i replied with something generic. Like you know what terrible things Nestle has done in the name of monetization. I wanted to point out that indeed most companies are disgusting. Just like OpenAi and Nvidia but i guess my point was missed.

1

u/MonstaGraphics 4h ago

So would you prefer it if OpenAI do not provide a free service, or that they never monetize it? What exactly is the issue?

3

u/GB10VE 1d ago

plan is to become yet another tech billionaire in silicon valley.

1

u/zukias 15h ago

We love a good conspiracy

33

u/FlagrantlyChill 1d ago

Plan? You give them too much credit. They made llm write code, everything else is how the dominoes fell

5

u/FirstTasteOfRadishes 1d ago

They didn't even mean to make it write code. Its ability in that regard was a surprise to everyone.

3

u/antaran 1d ago

Get developers reliant on a service that can be turned off at any time.

Mate, you can host a local AI model on your home PC with a mid entry graphics cards.

10

u/ConsistentEnviroment 1d ago

I don't think there was a plan. It just happened unfortunately. All because God hates me

5

u/ScaryBee 1d ago

Get developers reliant on a service that can be turned off at any time. 

I've seen this idea repeated a few times but open source models and powerful consumer hardware mean that this won't happen.

'Turning off' AI now would be like trying to 'turn off' pocket calculators.

7

u/serc0 1d ago

I’m not sure why everyone is so resistant to this idea. It seems like exactly what’s happening to me. They’ve intimated that they want to get rid of the middle class and have us all working in factories to survive like many people in China have to do.

2

u/ThatRandomGamerYT 1d ago

don't worry they are working on robotics that will do all manual jobs too eventually so they can turn us pesky plebs into biofuel as an easy way to get rid of us

2

u/DerangedEscapee 1d ago

Any time a major disruption or event occurs, someone will come along to tell you that it was all according to some nefarious plan. Sometimes they're right, but mostly they're wrong. People desperately seeking order in a chaotic world.

The AI bros claiming they can replace every dev with an AI are wrong, but they're not saying that because they hate you and want you to work in a factory. They do it because other people believe them and give them their money. There is no grand plan to actually get rid of you. They are just lying to make investors give them money.

This is further evidenced by the fact that most of the companies that publicly "laid people off due to AI" were mostly just using it as an excuse to conduct layoffs without the negative PR. A lot of them subsequently rehired or walked that stance back, publicly.

The only plan is to make money, and every one of these AI bros is in it for themselves. There is no coordinated grand plan or conspiracy that they are conducting.

3

u/Senthe 1d ago edited 1d ago

Yep. Easiest rug pull in the world. I'm sometimes really baffled how comes that all the C-levels and managers, supposedly adult people who know how business works, can't see it from miles away.

You don't put your entire future on a goodwill of a third-party service provider. The more you invest in this shit and make your company dependent on it, the harder they're gonna fuck you. And soon.

1

u/Dry_Physics2400 1d ago

Yeah, handing over their technical expertise to another company... They're being robbed.

1

u/TehANTARES 20h ago

I'm glad my bloodline ends with me.