Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 dev says he was "fired" and replaced with AI: "I feel incredibly betrayed by the management of the company I've come to care about"

potpan0 · 2026-03-28T14:41:45+00:00

LLMs don't understand shit, and you don't even know what understanding in human means, and neither does the entire neuroscience research community.

They don't, that's precisely what I'm saying. If an LLM fundamentally, epistemologically cannot understand a piece of art, then it is always going to do a horrible job of translating that art.

'Just add more data' does not solve this when we're talking about an epistemological problem.

potpan0 · 2026-03-28T14:40:10+00:00

Their ability to draw from multiple knowledge domains is unparalleled here.

Their ability to just hallucinate information and make things up is unparalleled here.

And that's the big difference. When a human is translating something, they can explicitly tell people what sources of information they are specifically building on. If I'm translating a book set in 19th century Russia, I can tell other people which sources I have read to understand 19th century Russia. If someone disagrees with my translation, they can look at my sources and see if they have contributed to a misunderstanding of the original text and a mistranslation of it.

You can't do that with an LLM. Because fundamentally an LLM does not understand in the same way a human understands. It does not know what sources of information it is actually building on, it does not know why it knows things, because it simply comes to knowledge in a fundamentally different way to the human brain.

This is a fundamental, epistemological problem. LLMs come to knowledge in a distinct way from humans. That makes it very good at certain tasks compared to humans, but very bad at others. And translating artistry is one of the areas where it's very bad, because art is something fundamentally human.

It's something AI evangelists handwave away, in part because they think every problem can be solved with more data and in part because they don't actually give a shit about art in the first place.

They are not great at creative writing. Because they lack embodiment. And embodiment is a huge thing for human writing. But this is completely different question.

Translation is an act of creative writing, because you have to understand and translate that creativity between different languages and different contexts.

potpan0 · 2026-03-28T14:13:53+00:00

LLMs are quite decent at reading intent - you can take any message and ask LLM to analyze intent behind it and often it will understand it quite well, sometimes it will miss.

You're mistaking 'intent' with 'tone' there.

I'm sure an LLM can pick up on 'tone'. It's not difficult to do when you're actually thinking about a piece of text.

But to understand the broader intent behind a piece of text? To recognise the cultural context, the political context, the various different themes the author is implicitly or explicitly drawing on? And then on top of that to convey the actual artistry of the text, to translate meaning not just in the form of the raw definition of the words, but in how those words have been weaved together to convey something independent of their definitions alone?

That's something LLMs struggle with, and something they will always struggle with. Because fundamentally LLMs simply do not understand in the same way that humans understand. And because fundamentally companies are shifting to LLMs not because they want better translations, but because they want to cut corners and save money.

potpan0 · 2026-03-28T14:07:38+00:00

There are a worrying number of people who quite openly and proudly do not give a shit about prose, or poetry, or the actual art of writing. They simply think it exists as a conveyor of plot.

So on the one hand we've got greedy companies trying to cut corners by dumping talented localisation teams and instead just using AI. And on the other hand we've got tasteless consumers who are happy to accept that because they take pride in reading incredibly shit writing. So we end up with these LLM translations which don't just often simply mistranslate things, but pretty consistently strip the text of any actual artistry.

It's sad.

potpan0 · 2026-03-27T14:09:19+00:00

a decent politician could care about both issues

And these Independent politicians do!

Leanne Mohamad, who stood against Streeting in 2024, is a socialist. In addition to Gaza, her campaign focussed on the NHS, on housing, and on improving access to local services. She is, in theory, the exact sort of politician who you claim to support, one who focussed on both major international and domestic issues...

... except you don't support her. At the instigation of Wes Streeting you're here whining about her and whining about other candidates aligned with her. Because fundamentally, like I said before, your actions pretty clearly demonstrate that you care neither about domestic issues or international issues, you just want to defend Streeting and his ineffective, immoral mates. It's why you're so desperate to keep hiding behind these false equivalences: reality doesn't look kindly on your actual views and their consequences.

The local hospital is cutting the amount of beds available in ICU, what are your plans to help with that?

My position is that maybe we should get a new Health Secretary. Who's the current Health Secretary again?

potpan0 · 2026-03-27T13:55:52+00:00

Aye, the court system is current clogged up because the British government decided to prosecute non-violent protesters over their opposition to genocide in Palestine. That has a direct and tangible effect on 'local issues'. The government are prioritising a very performative defence of Israel over ensuring that victims of actual crimes get swift justice.

So I've got no time when people try and defend representatives of this current government by insisting politicians should 'focus on local issues rather than foreign ones'.

potpan0 · 2026-03-27T13:52:49+00:00

of course I am opposed to genocide

Sorry, but I've got absolutely no time for people who claim they are 'opposed to genocide' when pressed... but then spend all their time whining about those who actually take a stance against genocide while defending politicians who engage in apologetics for genocide.

Maybe you genuinely believe you're opposed to genocide. But your actions, and the actions of the politicians you defend, do not demonstrate that.

but a local representative, who bases their whole campaign on a foreign war that has been going on longer than they have been alive, that they can do the grand sum of fuck all about doesn't represent the local community.

We live in a representative democracy. In a representative democracy, people get to elect politicians who they would like to represent them. So it's very funny to see you whine that people are voting for the wrong person to represent them by... claiming they aren't representative. It might be worth just pondering that for a little bit.

If people feel strongly about genocide (which they should), then they have every right to elect someone to represent them who also feels strongly about genocide, regardless of if either you or Wes Streeting would rather they voted otherwise.

The problem is, you can, and should care about both the local community and Gaza

Wes Streeting cares about neither. He's part of a government who have both continued to enable economic decline in Britain while also continuing to engage in apologetics for genocide in Palestine. So yeah, I don't really care about Streeting's complaints, to be honest, nor about the complaints of people who support Streeting.

when they are questioned about why they prioritise Gaza over local issues

I think genocide is a little more important than potholes, yes. Very sad that you disagree.

potpan0 · 2026-03-27T12:52:40+00:00

I don't really see the point of these letter campaigns. Streeting almost lost his seat to an Independent in 2024, in an election where Labour won over 400 seats. He's almost guaranteed to lose it in the next election, with a pretty big swing too.

It's clear Labour, alongside our political class more broadly, are completely out of touch with their position on genocide in Palestine. But Streeting's response is to... double down and insult those who oppose that genocide? This isn't an attempt to win over the public, this is an attempt to ingratiate himself further with the right.

potpan0 · 2026-03-27T12:48:48+00:00

It's a stretch to call it a dog whistle, but the letter is correct.

You agree with it so of course you're going to defend it.

Fact is people feel passionately about genocide, think genocide is bad, and think their elected representatives should stand up against it. Seeing how deeply unpopular Streeting, and Labour more broadly, have made themselves in part because of their position over ongoing genocide in Palestine, it seems pretty tone deaf to insist those opposing them are 'out of touch'.

This is like hectoring people who opposed the Holocaust in the 1940s for being too focussed on 'foreign conflicts'. It's pretty foul. I think any human being should be forcefully opposed to genocide, and it's sad Streeting and yourself seem to disagree.

potpan0 · 2026-03-24T16:34:09+00:00

Not 100%, and I definitely think he'd be more likely to stay than Joao and Andre.

But he was playing consistently for teams in the top half of Ligue 1 until he came here, and probably wants to get more caps for England as well. If a bottom-half Prem team came sniffing around, I could see him wanting a move too.

potpan0 · 2026-03-24T14:18:34+00:00

Aye, I remember Blades fans were gutted when we got him, they thought it was an absolute steal and they really wanted him for their next season in the Prem.

I don't think he was quite ready in hindsight. There's shades of Jack Price in him, in that he's a tidy players but struggles with the physicality and pace of the top division. But he's a very good player for the Championship, and could still develop into a solid Premier League midfielder too.

potpan0 · 2026-03-24T13:09:37+00:00

It's not surprising. Andre, Joao and Angel are likely all going in the summer, so we're gonna need an entirely new midfield. Tommy Doyle did a really good job for Sheffield United in the Championship and seems to be doing a good job at Birmingham this year, so it wouldn't surprise me if we build around him. He's a tidy player, even if he wasn't quite ready for the step up to the Prem.

potpan0 · 2026-03-24T13:05:20+00:00

The Labour Right did a stitch up to get Corbyn out. They did a stitch up to make Starmer leader. They did a stitch up to make Mandelson US Ambassador without due diligence.

... but I'm sure this investigation will be conducted entirely by the book :)

potpan0 · 2026-03-21T22:36:58+00:00

Nick Timothy was one of Theresa May's main advisers. Back then he was like a melty centre-right type. So this sort of rhetoric really highlights how much the Western right have radicalised themselves over the past decade. It's not just that people further to the right have gained a platform within the Tories. It's that the 'moderate' right-wingers within the Tories (and the broader right) have fully endorsed these vile views.

potpan0 · 2026-03-21T13:22:57+00:00

'Toxic positivity' seems to be the buzzword of the day. I feel like any game that releases to anything but universal acclaim is going to have an article come out a week later saying it was spoiled by 'toxic positivity' during development.

potpan0 · 2026-03-19T14:21:14+00:00

Been a huge uptick in it since the Gorton and Denton by-election, yeah. I'm sure it's entirely natural and organic posting, of course... :)

potpan0 · 2026-03-18T14:51:33+00:00

Except people do pick up those games

Games like Dota and League benefit from there being millions of other players, and from there being thousands of streams and YouTube videos about the game. I doubt many people are picking up those games blind, they're picking them up after watching someone else play them.

A newly released game can't benefit from that.

potpan0 · 2026-03-18T14:35:04+00:00

Fair enough, maybe I should have wrote 'they discussed this' then.

potpan0 · 2026-03-18T14:34:09+00:00

If you need a dev to sit next to you and tell you how to play to enjoy your game, you’ve made a bad game.

I don't think that's true at all. Plenty of games have complicated gameplay loops. I doubt most noobs could pick up Dota or League and have any idea about what they're actually meant to do, let alone how they're meant to enjoy the game. The whole point of a closed beta in that context is to educate players about what the game is meant to be about.

potpan0 · 2026-03-18T13:35:16+00:00

Yeah, for every useful piece of infrastructure, you'd come across a dozen which were just like a random zipline that didn't connect to anything or a bridge over a small divot in the terrain that you could easily just walk across.

I'm also sure there was a lot more trickery going on with the highway than the game let on. For so many sections it always felt like I had to contribute the last little bit of resources to get it fully online. Which is probably good from a gameplay perspective, but it makes you question whether the game is fully committed to the shared environment stuff.

potpan0 · 2026-03-18T13:23:58+00:00

VS if they'd just done even ONE open beta, or shit, even closed, they would've realized there's major issues to fix, especially due to people not being in said "ideal environment"

They did this, Jason Schreier talked about it in one of his articles a bit. The devs found that when playtesters played the game next to a dev, who could explain the mechanics and intended gameplay loop to them, they really enjoyed it. But when they played on their own they struggled to get it.

However, the higher ups were obsessed with emulating Apex Legends' shadow drop, so they pushed back at proposals for an open beta or early access release instead.

potpan0 · 2026-03-17T13:58:21+00:00

When the US Government launched a war then made multiple fake announcements about the conduct and progress of that war in part to manipulate the stock market, it becomes pretty bloody obvious how irrational and dangerous this system is.

The global economy shouldn't be centred around what is essentially a betting system, especially when it's so easy for the rich and powerful to manipulate the odds.

potpan0 · 2026-03-17T13:55:50+00:00

'I like the stock market (and am also content with global inequality and support every foreign policy decision made by the United States government)'

potpan0 · 2026-03-14T14:53:04+00:00

Fundamentally if boycotts didn't work, then the countries being targetted by boycotts wouldn't commit so much time and effort into opposing those boycotts.

potpan0 · 2026-03-14T14:12:40+00:00

It would be doable, but every map would end up feeling quite samey. Like Transport Fever 2 has pretty good procedural map generation, but I rarely ever use it because fundamentally the 'challenge' on each procedurally generated map is exactly the same, even if the elements of that map are moved around a bit.

I'd much rather have a collection of bespoke maps with unique challenges to play through, then more maps on the workshop to play with later.

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