AI gaslighting watch: Is there AI in my fridge?

Former Blizzard president Mike Ybarra said this week that “AI, in one form or another, will be in every single video game,” so there’s no point in a developer apologizing for using it.

“I don’t get why devs feel the need to bend over for the few folks who can’t accept the reality that AI will be in every single thing—from video games to your fridge (it already is),” he said. “Man up.”

It’s true that you’ll struggle to find new products that haven’t at least sat adjacent to generative AI: They’ve stuffed it into everything, even MS Paint. But it is possible to distinguish between a dusting of airborne AI particles and, say, Activision selling AI-generated pictures in Call of Duty.

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Ybarra’s comment came in response to a mangled-looking AI painting being spotted in Crimson Desert, which the developer said was left in accidentally. So, the latter.

I do sort of agree with the former Blizzard exec, in that I think game developers who put AI-generated stuff in their games should say so. If those developers don’t feel like they’ve cut corners or done anything unethical, then by all means, they should be unapologetic, and consumers will react however they do. Better for us to have more information about what we’re buying than less.

The rest of the comment, though, is one of many persistent bits of nonsense that AI evangelists keep claiming: that it is in everything already so you may as well get used to it.

Maybe Ybarra’s got a fridge with AI in it—who knows what pointless wonders can be purchased on the salary of a daily fantasy sports app executive—but I inspected my $800 GE refrigerator and didn’t see any generative AI in it whatsoever.

I did see some mangled-looking condiments, so I can’t rule out that I haven’t accidentally started a seed colony for what will one day become a civilization of sentient mustard people, but I’m going to call this one false: No AI in my fridge!

In other AI gaslighting news, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said last week that “every plumber will become an architect” because of AI. I hope not, because I’m pretty sure we need plumbers.