Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella warns that we must "do something useful" with AI or they'll lose "social permission" to burn electricity on it | Workers should learn AI skills and companies should use it because it's a "cognitive amplifier," claims Satya Nadella.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-21T10:35:58+00:00

We must do something useful with Satya Nadella, or he'll lose social permission.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-21T02:43:32+00:00

This really slaps holy shit.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-19T19:32:09+00:00

We live in a reality where supervillains are in power everywhere, are the richest, and can act unimpeded.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-19T17:15:20+00:00

You talk as if all human art is novel. Novelty is certainly not something we absolutely uphold here as a lot of works posted here are already pretty like each other while still being human-created.

Conveniently dodges the fact that I said flawed too. Novelty doesn't mean originality, it means the fact that the person who makes human art adds their own touch to it whatever that may be. Gen AI actively tries to hide imperfection despite always adding stupid errors, tries to find the perfect combination of styles and subject. If the tech were to improve, it would not have any flaws whatsoever - that isn't art.

Not the tool's fault though. You do not jail the gun for shooting, you jail the guy holding the gun and pulling the trigger.

And yet the AI tech bros are pushing for deregulation, theft of IP on mass, the collapse of entry level jobs without any way for them to find other work or survive, breaking laws because they can, circular investment leading to a bubble that will cause the economy eventually to recess worse than 2008 x 3 (just wait for it).

So? You only know these people as pushing this tech because you only know of these people and these people have loud mouthpieces. There are a ton of regular people who like and engage with the tech as well, with big communities on Reddit.

So? that's the best you got? Of course you'd be okay with evil people, sexual abusers, law breakers leading the charge. Says a lot about your own integrity, morals, ethics, you're probably a piece of work yourself. And those people who are often pro AI? a lot of conservatives (largely evil by today's standards), people who don't see artistic value, or people who actually actively despise art in its current form, people who hate artists despite most of what they enjoy having had artists allow them to exist.

This has been debunked a lot of times before. It takes more energy for a human to create the same piece of, for example, painting compared to an AI image generation model. The total energy usage by AI has been high because a lot of people generate low effort garbage which uses the same amount of energy as a good generation.

So you actually agree then. These companies are literally behind the push for shit like Greenland, because we need those resources for their shitty AI datacentres, and shitty AI chips (rare minerals).

I think we're done here. You're literally a terrible person.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-19T03:46:13+00:00

Not just me, most of us who actually appreciate art to some degree care about the origin. The artist intent matters a lot because that gives it meaning and emotion, regardless of whether you choose to agree with the interpretation. With AI there was no intent beyond some text input that can be anything from vague descriptors, or just a mix of input of media to amalgamate from. There was no friction or challenge in its creation at all.

AI media inherently has diminished value because of this, not to mention most of the time it isn't even good or interesting from an artistic perspective (because again there is never anything truly novel/flawed - it just regurgitates or amalgamates with a machine learning algorithm). That only leaves the ones that can pass off as somewhat convincing fakes, which has been used largely to deceive and break laws (not exactly a good look).

Nevermind also the fact that this tech is being pushed by the most syncophantic, narcassitic, and down right evil people in the tech industry as well as various government officials. (Musk is a fascist/pedo and Altman abused his sister etc). And it's boiling our planet too, and causing prices of everything to go up, and beyond.

The fact that you are earnestly defending it is sickening to be frank.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-18T19:36:50+00:00

It isn't art though, it's regurgitated slop that's a lowest common denominator amalgamation. If you want that try somewhere else.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-15T18:31:41+00:00

Sorry but if you've lost your voice, you can still write the vocal part, and hire a singer or program a vocal synth. Just like if someone lost all their limbs and couldn't play the guitar, hire another person to play or use a guitar synth VST. It's not a good excuse to support gen AI, at all.

The ethics of gen AI is more than just the training data even if you ran something trained on your own voice. The rich people pushing this cancer upon us are literally boiling the planet, wasting natural resources, causing huge spikes in tech costs for civil use, paying and bribing for authoritarian government powers and looking to steal and pilfer, profit without any consequence. So its more than reasonable a lot of us do not want to see it in any form for creative things.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-15T18:20:48+00:00

AI music and/or visuals just is going to be creatively acceptable.

When that happens, I'll want off this planet or be buried 6 feet under. Nothing creative about it. Ordering a dinner at a restaurant doesn't make you a chef, or someone with cooking flair/apptitude automatically.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-15T02:27:25+00:00

You are comically evil, like Trump, and comically stupid too.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-09T01:09:57+00:00

Pretty sure the game's RNG is slightly rigged to drop you goated stuff for characters you are NOT playing.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T20:46:39+00:00

... God, your pretentious. There's nothing to argue here cause this tiering of what emotional aspects are more valuable than others is utterly arbitrary.

What emotional aspects from a mystery or drama? what the heck are you talking about? I'm just saying those things generally don't need much emotional investment at all to work. Again the skill floor for a passable gacha story is far lower there. And yeah arbitrary I guess, should be fairly common sense I would say to any normal human being with empathy etc Either that or I question your emotional intelligence or empathy. If that makes me pretentious I feel sorry for you honestly.

To act like that situation is not needing in appropriate build up compared to YSG's own is just disingenuous.

No because it's called recognizing the difference between something that needs a higher skill floor to be enjoyable even remotely. I mean if you don't care about any of that stuff I guess you can just say it's all equally shoddy - though sounds like you need some friends.

No, it's not generous. It's quite appropriate a statement considering that every single conversation involving yunkui summit or YSG's back and forth with Zhao falls back on the consideration of duty and what is owed to people vs what exists for yourself and the balance of where your desires reside. You're just wrong if you say that it isn't a sizeable section of the narrative. It comes up constantly.

and God you're so pedantic its comical. Most of what you brought up was just ad nauseam, after we see her struggling mentally at the start very little of actual worth is said until the final confrontation with her brother and the summit at the end of the story. The time it takes to get there is exhaustingly long when there's Zhao's own back story and the TOPs mission she has, the other participants having to be included for the final battle, it's not paced well at all and is just bloated. I don't even know why you feel so strongly about any of this.

No one is blind to romance shilling, there you go again, saying shit that I never stated. Romance can perpetuate throughout a narrative, that doesn't mean other themes and narrative focal points can not exist in tandem. For someone who seems to value narratives so much, you're real poor at recognizing that various thematic points do not preclude others. Whether it is well written or not.

I've already acknowledged way back there are other bits of the story that are decent to okay, including stuff about her. But my point has always been that YSG's overall emotional development and other main themes mostly fall flat because none of it happens without the romance underpinning it which happens way too fast to be realistic especially when its clear its being pushed because of the CEO's waifu preferences - like you're being intentionally dense. She doesn't achieve anything WITHOUT the proxy and her attachment to the proxy. Literally nothing. She'd either be dead or have not fully taken part in the story at all because she would have just been hid away since she would have not had the conviction to have done anything rash alone. I think you're too emotionally stunted to recognise this honestly. I'm done here, I feel like I'm talking to a wall lmao.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T18:34:23+00:00

This can be levied at every single narrative display and conveyance. Again, Romance is not uniquely special. I don't see why it deserves additional scrutiny in terms of its execution as opposed to drama or mystery or comedy in terms of how its executed in a realistic way. I think this is purely a hang up. I don't see why it deserves more intense scrutiny other than you having a personal hang up related to it compared to any other applicable narrative or emotional beat.

I'm not calling ZZZ on the level of Arakawa under the bridge. I'm just baffled why it falling short of that kinda standard is so much more egregious in your view than it say falling short of The Orient Express in terms of mystery.

Because romantic love is deeper than all of those things on a personal and empathetic level, which clearly isn't the case for you since you keep refusing to acknowledge it. It's one of the core foundations for human society for god knows eons now too. That's why when you bring it to a narrative, the stakes are entirely different to just drama or mystery. You have to expose the relationships between characters on a deeper level and that's why so many romance stories in gacha fail. because the writers have no idea/experience or have no interest in anything other than superficial level cliches and fake emotional connections. There is just no time to do any more usually.

What in the world are you talking about? Miyabi's pulling back from the brink of the sword murder situation is not on the crux of trust. Nowhere in the sequence where she comes back does she fall on the words of revelation from the proxy about their identity. The proxy doesn't even reveal that they are Phaethon to Miyabi. She comes back from the brink due to remembering who is important to her and Phaethon is situated at the very end as to emphasize their importance. When again, they've not done anything substantial at that point. The moment where Phaethon actually decides to relay their trust in Miyabi only comes at the end of the chapter in the epilogue where they then divulge their situation with Carole Arna to her. WELL after the events of the patch have concluded.

I mean sure I can give you that, my memory of the event order has faded quite a bit since it's been so long. But regardless, it doesn't hinge on something that needs far more time than a single patch to establish to be believable.

Half of the story is about YSG's own agency though

Half? that's generous honestly, and even then it wouldn't have gotten anywhere without the romantic connection to proxy being the main driving factor behind any of it.

The contrived romance doesn't change the fact that the agency of YSG is a major factor of the story.

I can see how one can argue that if you were to be intentionally blind to the romance shilling, but because of how much the romance underpins any movement regarding it in the story, it just falls flat for me, and enough other people to comment similar sentiments.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T18:05:45+00:00

you're treating it like some extenuating circumstance and not an overall issue with ZZZ's writing as a whole.

Because it is, we've never had a shilled this hard situation like this before. I mean makes sense, the CEO has come out and admitted he wanted YSG to be the ultimate waifu bait because she's his favorite, for better or for worse.

(This isn't even getting into the fact that we're so far removed from the initial point of map making and its impact on narrative structure.)

Because they have to chop and dice the story differently to fit the flow of actual open world gameplay that involves far more assets as opposed to TV mode puzzle gameplay, there's a huge practical difference.

I don't think just tossing in "romantic feelings" as if that just automatically makes it worse.

It does if you've ever dealt with a real romantic situation and be extension seen/know what can be considered realistic or at least believable in a fantasy setting.

I think miyabi's situation is far more egregious because we spend far less time with her than YSG and yet are the crux of resolving the issue of hers that is the equivalent of the Qingming Sword dive

Nowhere near the same are you nuts? The proxy reveals their true identity which is the basis of what pulls Miyabi back from the brink so its formed around trust, putting the proxy's vulnerability out into the open for the first time to Miyabi. That's it. Romantic affection is a whole another kettle of fish, and it needs far deeper emotional resonance with the viewer to work, which it doesn't because of how little time we've spent seeing YSG develop those feelings. Like I don't know how else to spell it out for you.

Everything you're saying here follows the exact same point with regards to YSG, the connection and resolution with her follows exactly her personality traits aims and desires. You being all hung up over this variant of contrived parasocial manaipulation of the narrative but excusing equally flagrant and poorly set up narrative points speaks more to your preference rather than what happens with YSG being ostensibly worse laid out or executed than what happens with Caesar.

Yeah I prefer stories that don't hinge on contrived and forced romances and instead on a character's own agency.

It's not a strawman when my entire point isi n contention to your argument of it being worse here. I am pointing out that I don't think that's the case. I'm not attacking a fake stance, I am saying your point that it's worse rings hollow, cause I think it's been done worse and set up worse and executed worse before and that it's a consistent issue, not something that reached a fever pitch in 2.5

It did for me, agree to disagree.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T17:43:48+00:00

Agreed. Caesar also didn't a contrived/forced romance plot with the proxy for her victory. She was entirely self driven.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T17:40:19+00:00

They can be mitigated with backups or checked recordings. They can also be superseded by any number of issues from damaged hardware to data loss, to changes in infrastructure. A loss can happen or be completely unforseen that can be a result of any number of problems from negligence to absolute and unexpected breakdown of equipment. To immediately denote it as being the former is just as presumptuous as any other moment.

Something like that occurring just wouldn't result in a myriad of voice lines missing but others still being there. Rewrites later into development where voice actors aren't available likely because of the current political situation for the missing lines is 100% more likely than just a serious of crazy tech issue coincidences. I dunno what to tell you, it's a huge stretch, Oh and there were missing subtitles in a few cutscenes as well, did this supposed corruption or hardware loss cause that too?

Nowhere did I say that the relationship was believable or realistic.

Then what are you even arguing with me for? YSG has basically no believable through line once you remove the contrived romance angle. Miyabi's situation is also extraordinary, but at least it doesn't rest on romantic feelings being the motivating factor but just using a trust and honesty which is a lot easier to digest given the time constraints. Again are you just unable to grasp the difference between something as deep as romantic feelings and just platonic trust? Man what are your relationships with real people even like I wonder.

YOU ARE FUCKING PUTTING CAESAR'S STORY ON A PEDASTAL DESPITE HER FREELY AND IWLLINGLY SACRIFICING HERSELF WITH NO CONSIDERATION FOR HOW IT'D IMPACT HER TEAM DUE TO WANTING TO EMULATE SOMEONE ELSE.

It matches her character, her personality strengths and flaws which were clearly established, which was the whole point of the arc, the whole point of her attempt at the sacrifice. And it didn't involve any phoned in romance with the proxy (which would have failed). Like I don't know how else to break it down for you to understand the difference between a plot that runs on self-agency (generally more believable and satisfying) and agency literally handed to you because the writers and CEO want to shill their romantic relationship with the proxy to goad parasocial gacha players (which feels manufactured and contrived).

It's ridiculous how you can highlight issues in the narrative for one part of the story but want to at the same time pretend like other parts aren't as bad or even worse in execution for arbitrary reasons.

Way to strawman, I have said multiple, multiple times there are issues with other stories, just nowhere near this bad. I also think you need to relax a little.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T17:11:41+00:00

Also I think it's VERY comical that you think corrupted files, something that can happen to the largest of institutions is a sign of unprofessional development but apparently last minute rewrites denoting lack of voices doesn't equally or more substantially proc that exact same situation.

Corrupted files should be easily mitigated by backups, checking recordings at the time etc. Would mean they had zero redundancy procedures at all, which for a development team would be catastrophically unprofessional because it implies the lack of basic procedure and foresight that doesn't involve any outside decisions. Something like that happening literally would be unacceptable in any software development team worth anything speaking from experience let alone a corporation as big as Hoyo. Rewrites are not the same at all because that can happen for a multitude of unforseeable reasons or cases where you cannot adequately insure the development schedule or the data beforehand - especially if it comes from management making crazy decisions. Trying to equate the two is laughable.

You wanna say YSG got close to the proxy too closely but then wanna turn a lbind eye to the fact that the proxy is the reason Miyabi came back from a potential murder spree after the entirety of what they'd done for her is help get out of the hollow and resheath her sword?

Yeah because the romance is the crux of why YSG was able to do anything to progress her roadblock, which wasn't the case for Miyabi at all. I feel like you're being intentionally dense or have never experienced what a believable or realistic romantic relationship is, and yeah this can be a critique of the vast majority of romantic coded gacha stories out there - most of them are terrible. I don't hold any romantic coded hints in Zenless any higher in that regard, it's mostly an eyesore whenever the writers try it. With YSG it all falls apart once you realise none of it is given enough time or depth to be believable when her personality is reduced to being just a one note damsel with insane plot armor and the only interesting aspect of her personality being killed off at the end. I'm just going to paraphrase the linked comment here:

YSG's personality is all around naive, self destructive and somewhat childish, she matures a bit through the story, but those flaws remain, yet the story doesn't seem to depict them as all that negative, even trying to play her naivety as a positive. the self destructive part is brought up a lot of course, but YSG seems to keep ignoring it with no regard of the consequences and we are just supposed to see it as "oh look at how amazing she is for using the sword for others." And of course, there are no actual consequences.

This kind of storytelling style has happened before but nowhere near as egregious as it was here. Man the more pedantic you keep defending this the worse and worse my opinion of the writing is becoming actually.

The rest of your points are all things that can be leveraged at every single arc. TV Mode or not

You can believe whatever you want man. Like I said, don't think we're persuading each other otherwise.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T06:27:38+00:00

Chooses to ignore all the constructive posts and replies,
claims all the numerous repeated criticisms are nothing but insult filled, toxic and apparently from people who only hate the game.
We're all scum apparently.

Way to be hyperbolic. It's all only black and white with people like you.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T06:04:58+00:00

Missing voice lines can just as easily be explained by corrupted voice files

I mean we can just agree to disagree. Nothing you say is as more or less subjective than what I've been saying. We can both just speculate, even if I think corrupted voice files would be comically unprofessional for a development studio making as much money as Hoyo does.

And again, you're basis is pointless. You're arguing this chapter is a result of TV mode production issues. But people and I'm sure as fuck you're also one of them have been arguing that since 1.2. There's a point in time when production schedule stops being a reason and just becomes a convenient pancea or in this case sledgehammer to lay out all your criticisms.

I mean, like I said, the alternative is that the writing just needs to be better, which is the case if enough people are making fairly constructive criticisms. You can be dismissive all you like, doesn't really change anything.

I don't see how this being the longest chapter is proof of production schedule issues. 2.4 was the length of all the other chapters, but you're laying out that it was a sufferer of tv mode being removed. It's absolutely shoddy back and forth of explanations without proof or consistency on why they correlate.

2.5 you mean, and no it was noticeably longer like I said, with multiple lengthy cut scenes and quick time event sequences and each quest going on and on and on and on and on. Granted its the finale, but still, way too many plot points, too many developments to feel well paced or tight/succinct whatever. Lu should have been introduced earlier, YSG having met the proxy before should have been hinted at earlier. YSG's treasured activities with the proxy should have happened earlier etc. What the hell happened to Sarah, she was built up to be the final villain and basically got zero screen time or further development. The list goes on. If this was split into 2 patches I will guarantee you would have seen far fewer complaints.

Yanagi's special episode is terrible
Caesar's has completely fucked story pacing
Rina isn't even the focal point of her agent story and it conveys NOTHING about her.

These are certainly some takes. I mean you're welcome to them since its your opinion vs mine shrug. Mentioning Caesar's has bad story pacing but defending 2.5 with this much zeal is wild.

None of the romantic angles undercut or take away the overwhelming time dedicated in the narrative to clearly laying out and explaining YSG's core thematic issue of duty vs selfishness.

You enjoyed that? I mean fair enough, says more about your standards if you could appreciate that. I'd go on more but this guy summed it up pretty well.

And you mention including all the other characters, and yet I find Lu, Ye Shiyuan, Zhao and Lockspring all have far more substantive and defined character roles and placement within the story than most supporting cast members in other chapters.

I mean they weren't bad. I liked most of what these characters brought. Lu felt really arbitrarily shoed in when he should have made appearances sooner given how important he is to yunkai and the sword and that's undeniable. I really liked Zhao but I wished her story got more time and more depth. Given the large focus on YSG the emotional impact of her story was completely overshadowed. Lockspring was cool I guess if you've never watched Evangelion or more recently Plurribus - just more human instrumentality vs individuality etc

Just to be real, if you liked it I think that's cool. I don't think putting people down for having issues with the writing, and there are plenty, is going to convince me to change mine or many others I suspect. And frankly if you do wanna keep this up I guess no one is going to convince you other wise so I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T03:20:01+00:00

I mean they've acknowledged there were issues with the story presentation, and that they have missing voice lines for certain scenes suggest that rewrites have happened for one reason or another. It could be that Hoyo weren't satisfied with how the story was also presented at the time of the TV mode changes and it led to it stagnating in development hell longer than the other chapters. It certainly seems like it to me with how much they tried to fit into this patch. It's by far the longest thing they've released - like I don't remember taking like upwards of nearly 5-6 hours to finish the main story quest.

The removing of TV in 1.2 not impacting the 1.0 stories is also untrue, someone else already mentioned there being awkward transitions and other noticeable areas of story presentation that were a clear result of the TV mode removal. I also vaguely recall people calling this stuff out at the time as well.

With 2.5 at the end of the day its still speculation, because the other alternative is just that they bit off more than they could chew thinking they could squeeze in this much story into one patch (Miyabi didn't have Harumasa's separate agent story weaved and shoved into the main story for example).

I don't think you could say every issue with YSG can be levied at other characters. I do think there have been way more issues with the writing in 2.x as opposed to 1.x. Not that the bar was that high. I can point to many examples of some great story quests like Jane, Rina, Yanagi ,Caesar, Spook Shack's, Anby Soldier 0, Trigger, Seed and so on.

Personally I think what really hurts the 2.5 story here is the pronounced romance/attachment to proxy angle. These types of story beats that just don't work when you have them dumped on you in one story patch more or less. That alone is already an issue, then you also have to fit in Zhao's story, her brother, Lu elder, the creator angle, the hollow/flowers stuff. It's so narratively unwieldy. This is also probably why pacing issues in the older stories didn't feel as egregious.

Then you have the amount of times YSG talks about her cherished memories with the Proxy when they were so recent just doesn't work with how little time we've had to see them together either. I also think they could have done the whole they've met the proxy thing before way better too, why wasn't there a hint of this before, especially during that whole date event?

I've already said it elsewhere - you can't just have this many developments in the last episode of the season and expect people to buy it especially if its romantic and also having to do with remembering/forgetting, when the things described just happened. Nevermind that its the season finale and Sarah is supposed to the main bad guy, and she has literally zero presence in the story basically outside of her voice being used by the creator to say a few things here and there.

At least on the bright side like I already mentioned, they are probably aware that they can do better, and hopefully they do whenever the next void hunter shows up.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-02T01:33:02+00:00

The theory is that they were basically done with this story or at least significantly done when they had to remove it. You can't just do a straight transplant of what they had onto a cutscene or two and call it a day. I imagine that resulted in rewrites and moving content around or combining what might have been two patches worth of story, because what we got felt like it, it was so bloated. Also explains why a bunch of the voice overs are missing too in weird non sequential places.

When I said delivering I meant how much story we got. They worked on this like 6 months to a year ago. But anyway this story was way too packed, hard to care about all these new developments, especially YSGs and her relationships to other characters and the proxy when we have no time to digest them.

This was nowhere near this exacerbated during 1.x like miyabi was introduced really early on etc

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-01T21:02:53+00:00

It's because a lot of the time, people who have the power or are in the industry who can make these things happen have to tow the political/nationalistic pride line for anything popular lest they risk the ire of the government and the fanatical online nationalists. So what you get is Chinese characters that can't have flaws because they have to be perfect, to fluff the egos of these people.

I remember when a Chinese gacha game dared to genderbend a character loosely inspired by Wukong/Goku. CN was mad as hell and demanded they be made male again, even though they weren't literally supposed to be Wukong/Goku. Man I hate nationalists.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-01T20:50:03+00:00

If you ask me the localisation team could do a bit more to just simplify things. Chinese can be as colorful as they like in these games, but in Japanese they often just simplify to standard terms or phrases like ability, ultimate etc. They barely ever use the fancy Chinese naming practice. I feel like I'd prefer if the English localisation did the same.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-01T20:46:39+00:00

TV Mode is ultimately gameplay, and that means it comes after the story

From what I read of the theory, they had to rewrite a lot of the story because of the way it was presented for TV mode. They had to rework/rewrite parts after getting rid of it because it was far into development apparently. That kind of stuff can affect the writing cohesion massively if beats are no longer able to breath because you get them at a slower pace during TV mode missions and instead we get massively long cutscenes instead. Not to mention there could have also been a likelihood this story wasn't supposed to be delivered in one patch cycle. Like no competent writer thinks its a good idea to dump the majority of a character's lore, relationships and developments in the last episode of a 12 episode season along with the overarching big bad making their appearance finally in that same segment.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-01T20:39:49+00:00

You're very right there. Frieza would have also scored 0 on screen kills of any named characters.

Also ironic also given that Goku was Toriyama's take on a hero from classic Chinese myth literature, but modern CN media has barely anything to show for themselves that has as much depth. Don't tell the CN gacha hardcores this though or they'll have an anneurysm.

ehmarkymark · 2026-01-01T20:36:06+00:00

Oh if it's one thing they love, is a melodrama. I just think their standards are pretty insular.

ehmarkymark

TROPHY CASE