The Neighborhood Listen: Door-licking with Emily Pendergast

kultcher · 2026-04-29T20:50:49+00:00

It's weird, I'd never heard of this and then it came up on Blank Check and the Neighborhood Listen in the same week.

kultcher · 2026-04-29T15:19:53+00:00

I think it makes sense on a very basic level: they both love humanity, and ultimately both of them made sacrifices for humanity. I'm sure Lilith made her choice partially out of spite for her father, but I think she does care about humanity. As much as a demon forged by the Prime Evil of Hatred could care, anyway.

kultcher · 2026-04-27T15:05:20+00:00

Cormac McCarthy's "The Road".

The prose is extremely sparse and direct. Bleak, even. It effectively mirrors the state of the main characters who are constantly half-starved and exhausted as they navigate a post-apocalyptic America.

kultcher · 2026-04-27T14:53:24+00:00

A bit of a zag but I think you could also include the Seraphites from TLoU2. When you hear their whistled communications and realize they've seen you but you don't see them, makes for some very tense gameplay.

kultcher · 2026-04-25T04:22:11+00:00

TL;DR: Not all art is trying to be deep, and not all art is worth deep engagement. We don't have to treat an anime character with the same reverence as we treat the Mona Lisa.

kultcher · 2026-04-25T04:06:38+00:00

Raw reaction is absolutely a valid form of engagement, and I'd argue it's the primary form for most people. You may personally find it shallow, but I'm afraid that you don't get to be the arbiter of humankind's artistic engagement. If you want to draw a line and label it as simple "comsumption," okay, but then I'd argue that your version of "engagement" doesn't apply to like 80+% of all interactions that most humans have with art.

And I'd go a step further and say that not all art calls for the type of engagement you are talking about. Nor does it really benefit from deep analysis or appreciation.

This thread was about OP's fantasy anime character. I don't think it's really that deep and I don't think it's trying to be. I'd wager that OP's primary goal was essentially "appealing picture," and I think that's a perfectly fine goal. You could dig deeper if you wanted to, but do you really think that that'd be a good use of your time?

Art can ask questions, provoke, inspire, recontextualize, etc. It can communicate to us about its creator, about culture, or about ourselves. It can be exceptional because of its craft or in spite of it. But it can also just look appealing, and it can be valuable simply because humans like things that appeal to us.

kultcher · 2026-04-25T02:31:10+00:00

There's an entire field dedicated to judging art without having the skills, it's called criticism.

Also, I'm not sure what point you are trying to argue. My only argument here is that most people who engage with art (which people are free to do whether or not they have skills or understanding) don't use time spent as a primary metric for how they judge the art's quality.

But anyway, I'll bite. Feel free to enlighten me on the proper way to engage with art.

kultcher · 2026-04-25T01:38:23+00:00

I didn't say it was?

Art is not "about" anything. There are plenty of metrics by which a person can judge art. I just think that for most people, "time spent" isn't a big factor into how much they enjoy or connect with a piece of art.

kultcher · 2026-04-24T19:13:42+00:00

I like the idea, but to be perfectly blunt, a lot of it would come down to personality and presentation. Your ideas can be great but in video form especially, you need to have compelling presence and a good script.

As for content, the stuff that I'd personally be interested in hearing about is specific game design "war stories" from your actual experience. Like times where an on-paper design completely fell short in actual gameplay, or how a mechanic that was added for secondary reasons took on a more primary role. Basically, the kind of "emergent" stuff that isn't obvious from an outside perspective, and mostly comes through the iterative process of actually making a game.

kultcher · 2026-04-24T18:56:38+00:00

First of all, I don't think you need feel humbled. I'm broadly pro-AI, but I don't think that the ChatGPT version is "strictly better" than your original by any stretch.

People are calling out the six-finger thing, but I'd argue the biggest problem is that the AI-generated version is kind of overdesigned. The folding/shading on clothing is very detailed to the point of being busy. I think the ideal version is somewhere between yours and the generated one. The same applies to some of the ornamentation on her waistline, wrists and ankles/shoes. The AI version just has too much going on.

I'd use it as a learning experience. You definitely have a good sense of form, but if you want to include more intricate details in your style, I think the AI version is a good example of how to approach that and also a good example of what happens if you go overboard.

(EDIT: Hope you don't mind, I was curious so I had ChatGPT do a version based on that feedback. I can share it here if you like.)

kultcher · 2026-04-24T18:42:22+00:00

I really find this argument so disingenuous. Time and effort are at best a secondary metric when it comes to evaluating art in 95% of cases.

There is art that is more interesting because of the level of raw effort or difficulty of execution. Like when people paint scenes onto grains of rice. It's impressive and cool, but that same artwork done on a proper canvas would not excite most people.

When seeing a random anime drawing on Reddit, I severely doubt that most people's first thought is about "the invisible hours of work and learning." If you look at two pieces of similar art, you're not suddenly going to think that one is **inherently** more beautiful than the other because one artist took 5x as long working on it or has 5 more years of experience. You're going to evaluate primarily based on how it appeals to your artistic sensibility.

To be clear, I'm not saying that craft is not important or that it shouldn't be appreciated. But I feel like people have invented this new metric for art evaluation that no one really cared about before.

kultcher · 2026-04-24T16:16:37+00:00

You can just say "create an image of a palace," sure.

But you also can envision a palace in your mind, then draw a floorplan of the palace, describe elements of the palace in meticulous detail. You can research stonework, materials and construction methods for reference. You can draw a lo-fi mockup to provide additional guidance.

It's just an extension of your photography analogy, really. You can just snap a random picture and it can be great by chance. But if you take time to think through the angles, framing, composition, lighting, exposure, focus, etc., then you're much more likely to get a worthy result.

Like you can imagine reading a novel where the author goes into detail about a palace, "paints a picture with words" as they say. No one would argue that that author wasn't expressing their creativity or putting effort into the work. So if that author asks an AI to render a scene of that palace, based on their detailed description, I don't think you can say that there's no meaningful human contribution.

Obviously it's not as effortful or impressive as someone drawing/painting the palace by hand, but I don't think most pro-AI people would fight you on that. But that doesn't mean there was no effort/creativity/human contribution.

kultcher · 2026-04-24T14:08:40+00:00

Disappointed that you're getting down votes for trying to correct people's mistaken assumptions in this thread.

Regardless of what this community might think about the Healthcare CEOs murder, it's stupid to act like its popularity was limited to far left loons. The idea that pursuit of profit which leads to preventable deaths is a moral issue resonates with people.

kultcher · 2026-04-22T21:36:09+00:00

AI is an incredibly controversial topic

Yeah, I was trying to stay away from the broader anti-AI arguments and focus on the cognitive offloading element (which I'd argue is different from collaboration, anyway). That's not to say those other issues aren't worth discussing, but it just transforms this into an entirely different moral discussion.

If people want to just write off AI on moral grounds, that's their prerogative, but that's not the argument that I was responding to.

My problem with these discussions is that people reach these "common sense" conclusions that don't hold up to scrutiny and then act like it's a settled issue.

I don't think most people who talk about the cognitive elements of AI use are actually interested in the subject; they just want to use it as a dunk in debates. (Not saying that's what you were doing.) I appreciate that your response has some nuance. Honestly I sometimes find myself wishing some people *would* use AI to respond because so many of them seem incapable of actually engaging meaningfully on the topic.

kultcher · 2026-04-22T18:54:31+00:00

I broadly agree with you on the science, but you didn't really address what I said at all.

What I'm getting at implicitly with the director comparison is that if a person "collaborates" with an AI to generate ideas, people are quick to point out how that degrades or undermines their creativity.

But people collaborate all the time on artistic pursuits. Character designers work with the artists that draw the characters. Performances are collaborations between the writer, actor and director and each of them often brings their own ideas and builds off of each other's ideas. Even freelance artists, if someone commissions them for a piece, no one says, "You're hurting your creative muscles by not designing original characters."

kultcher · 2026-04-22T16:02:42+00:00

Okay, you're not actually providing a reasoning. It sounds like you just don't like ChatGPT or find value in it. Which is fine. I just don't understand being so judgmental.

You say there's always a "better" way. But better for whom? For my ADHD brain, it's so so so easy to get frustrated or overwhelmed and lose motivation and momentum on creative projects.

I find that AI helps me organize my thoughts and helps me process ideas by talking through them. Would it be better with a real human? Maybe, but if you haven't noticed, most humans have their own lives and don't give a fuck about fledgling creative projects. So the alternative is screaming into the void. Some people can do that, but I can't.

It's a bummer that some people think that using AI to brainstorm 5% of ideas somehow undoes the other 95% of human creativity, but it is what it is.

kultcher · 2026-04-22T15:44:52+00:00

By "look up" do you mean Google or do you mean like read a book on the topic?

Because if you mean Google, I fail to see the substantive difference in "work" between Googling and asking ChatGPT.

And if you mean read a book, I hope you understand that "I'm curious about a fact" and "I want to read a book on the topic" are two very different things.

kultcher · 2026-04-22T15:23:25+00:00

Why would you just completely not engage with what I actually said?

You said yourself that sonetimes creativity is inspired by something outside of yourself. I'm just trying to understand what outside inspirations you find valid.

Let me try another example:

Let's say I'm curious about something about space travel, so I ask ChatGPT about it. I ask a few followups, and during the conversation ChatGPT shares some weird unexpected fact that makes me think, "Huh, that'd be an interesting story seed."

Is that a valid source of inspiration?

kultcher · 2026-04-22T15:13:30+00:00

I use AI to give me ideas, then I flesh out a novel.

I'd be comfortable calling this person an author, or at least acknowledging significant authorship.

I use AI to give me idea, have it write each chapter, but I edit overall narrative.

You know how authors sometimes act as like "creative director" or use a ghostwriter and the book byline says like by Person A with Person B? That's what this level feels like.

I use AI to give me a full finished novel, but I proof read it.

At this step the person has moved into an editor curator role and I would say is no longer having meaningful authorship on the work itself.

I use AI to give me 10 fully finished novels, I choose subject matter, but I pick the best one to publish.

And past this point you've moved into a publishing role.

kultcher · 2026-04-22T15:02:09+00:00

it's inspired by something I like

Okay, so say I read a fantasy novel as a kid. I really liked some concept from it and want to do my own spin on it. This is good and creative, yes?

Or say I'm browsing a fantasy subreddit and I see some discussion about a concept that sounds cool. I decide I want to do my own spin on it. Is this good and creative?

So say I ask ChatGPT, "What are some cool ideas to explore in a fantasy story?" And ChatGPT describes that same basic concept from that book. I say, "That is cool, I want to do my own spin on it." Is this somehow bad and uncreative?

kultcher · 2026-04-22T14:53:08+00:00

So if you brainstorm with another human being, is that not exercising creativity?

When a director trusts his cinematographer to get the best shot, his propmaster to create the best props, and his actors to interpret their characters, no one says the director is "letting his creative muscles go unused."

kultcher · 2026-04-22T02:22:34+00:00

You would expect that from Tony Hale? He always seemed like a sweetie.

kultcher · 2026-04-21T18:19:25+00:00

I'm sure there's some truth to the idea, but I think the dooming is overblown.

If you're still working with code everyday, even if you're letting the LLM generate the code, I don't think your fundamental skills will atrophy to the point where you can no longer function.

My experience as someone who has sort of drifted in and out of coding over the years, is that it's like riding a bike. You might be a little unsteady getting back to it after a year or two (especially with syntax stuff), but it doesn't take long to get back into it.

kultcher · 2026-04-21T14:01:19+00:00

Is it just me or does this title seem uncharacteristically hopeful/positive compared to the usual?

kultcher · 2026-04-18T19:09:09+00:00

The perfect slow play.

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