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TIME een koppeling hebt gedeeld

2025-06-03 08:45:25 ·

The Most-Cited Computer Scientist Has a Plan to Make AI More Trustworthy

On June 3, Yoshua Bengio, the world’s most-cited computer scientist, announced the launch of LawZero, a nonprofit that aims to create “safe by design” AI by pursuing a fundamentally different approach to major tech companies. Players like OpenAI and Google are investing heavily in AI agents—systems that not only answer queries and generate images, but can craft plans and take actions in the world. The goal of these companies is to create virtual employees that can do practically any job a human can, known in the tech industry as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Executives like Google DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis point to AGI’s potential to solve climate change or cure disease as a motivator for its development. Bengio, however, says we don't need agentic systems to reap AI's rewards—it's a false choice. He says there's a chance such a system could escape human control, with potentially irreversible consequences. “If we get an AI that gives us the cure for cancer, but also maybe another version of that AI goes rogue and generates wave after wave of bio-weapons that kill billions of people, then I don't think it's worth it," he says. In 2023, Bengio, along with others including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman signed a statement declaring that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”Now, Bengio, through LawZero, aims to sidestep the existential perils by focusing on creating what he calls “Scientist AI”—a system trained to understand and make statistical predictions about the world, crucially, without the agency to take independent actions. As he puts it: We could use AI to advance scientific progress without rolling the dice on agentic AI systems.Why Bengio Says We Need A New Approach To AI The current approach to giving AI agency is “dangerous,” Bengio says. While most software operates through rigid if-then rules—if the user clicks here, do this—today's AI systems use deep learning. The technique, which Bengio helped pioneer, trains artificial networks modeled loosely on the brain to find patterns in vast amounts of data. But recognizing patterns is just the first step. To turn these systems into useful applications like chatbots, engineers employ a training process called reinforcement learning. The AI generates thousands of responses and receives feedback on each one: a virtual “carrot” for helpful answers and a virtual “stick” for responses that miss the mark. Through millions of these trial-and-feedback cycles, the system gradually learns to predict what responses are most likely to get a reward. “It’s more like growing a plant or animal,” Bengio says. “You don’t fully control what the animal is going to do. You provide it with the right conditions, and it grows and it becomes smarter. You can try to steer it in various directions.”The same basic approach is now being used to imbue AI with greater agency. Models are tasked with challenges with verifiable answers—like math puzzles or coding problems—and are then rewarded for taking the series of actions that yields the solution. This approach has seen AI shatter previous benchmarks in programming and scientific reasoning. For example, at the beginning of 2024, the best AI model scored only 2% on a standardized test for AI of sorts consisting of real world software engineering problems; by December, an impressive 71.7%. But with AI’s greater problem-solving ability comes the emergence of new deceptive skills, Bengio says. The last few months have borne witness to AI systems learning to mislead, cheat, and try to evade shutdown—even resorting to blackmail. These have almost exclusively been in carefully contrived experiments that almost beg the AI to misbehave—for example, by asking it to pursue its goal at all costs. Reports of such behavior in the real-world, though, have begun to surface. Popular AI coding startup Replit’s agent ignored explicit instruction not to edit a system file that could break the company’s software, in what CEO Amjad Masad described as an “Oh f***” moment,” on the Cognitive Revolution podcast in May. The company’s engineers intervened, cutting the agent’s access by moving the file to a secure digital sandbox, only for the AI agent to attempt to “socially engineer” the user to regain access.The quest to build human-level AI agents using techniques known to produce deceptive tendencies, Bengio says, is comparable to a car speeding down a narrow mountain road, with steep cliffs on either side, and thick fog obscuring the path ahead. “We need to set up the car with headlights and put some guardrails on the road,” he says.What is “Scientist AI”?LawZero’s focus is on developing “Scientist AI” which, as Bengio describes, would be fundamentally non-agentic, trustworthy, and focused on understanding and truthfulness, rather than pursuing its own goals or merely imitating human behavior. The aim is creating a powerful tool that, while lacking the same autonomy other models have, is capable of generating hypotheses and accelerating scientific progress to “help us solve challenges of humanity,” Bengio says.LawZero has raised nearly million already from several philanthropic backers including from Schmidt Sciences and Open Philanthropy. “We want to raise more because we know that as we move forward, we'll need significant compute,” Bengio says. But even ten times that figure would pale in comparison to the roughly billion spent last year by tech giants on aggressively pursuing AI. Bengio’s hope is that Scientist AI could help ensure the safety of highly autonomous systems developed by other players. “We can use those non-agentic AIs as guardrails that just need to predict whether the action of an agentic AI is dangerous," Bengio says. Technical interventions will only ever be one part of the solution, he adds, noting the need for regulations to ensure that safe practices are adopted.LawZero, named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s zeroth law of robotics—“a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”—is not the first nonprofit founded to chart a safer path for AI development. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 with the goal of “ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity,” and intended to serve a counterbalance to industry players guided by profit motives. Since opening a for-profit arm in 2019, the organization has become one of the most valuable private companies in the world, and has faced criticism, including from former staffers, who argue it has drifted from its founding ideals. "Well, the good news is we have the hindsight of maybe what not to do,” Bengio says, adding that he wants to avoid profit incentives and “bring governments into the governance of LawZero.”“I think everyone should ask themselves, ‘What can I do to make sure my children will have a future,’” Bengio says. In March, he stepped down as scientific director of Mila, the academic lab he co-founded in the early nineties, in an effort to reorient his work towards tackling AI risk more directly. “Because I'm a researcher, my answer is, ‘okay, I'm going to work on this scientific problem where maybe I can make a difference,’ but other people may have different answers."
#mostcited #computer #scientist #has #plan

The Most-Cited Computer Scientist Has a Plan to Make AI More Trustworthy
On June 3, Yoshua Bengio, the world’s most-cited computer scientist, announced the launch of LawZero, a nonprofit that aims to create “safe by design” AI by pursuing a fundamentally different approach to major tech companies. Players like OpenAI and Google are investing heavily in AI agents—systems that not only answer queries and generate images, but can craft plans and take actions in the world. The goal of these companies is to create virtual employees that can do practically any job a human can, known in the tech industry as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Executives like Google DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis point to AGI’s potential to solve climate change or cure disease as a motivator for its development. Bengio, however, says we don't need agentic systems to reap AI's rewards—it's a false choice. He says there's a chance such a system could escape human control, with potentially irreversible consequences. “If we get an AI that gives us the cure for cancer, but also maybe another version of that AI goes rogue and generates wave after wave of bio-weapons that kill billions of people, then I don't think it's worth it," he says. In 2023, Bengio, along with others including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman signed a statement declaring that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”Now, Bengio, through LawZero, aims to sidestep the existential perils by focusing on creating what he calls “Scientist AI”—a system trained to understand and make statistical predictions about the world, crucially, without the agency to take independent actions. As he puts it: We could use AI to advance scientific progress without rolling the dice on agentic AI systems.Why Bengio Says We Need A New Approach To AI The current approach to giving AI agency is “dangerous,” Bengio says. While most software operates through rigid if-then rules—if the user clicks here, do this—today's AI systems use deep learning. The technique, which Bengio helped pioneer, trains artificial networks modeled loosely on the brain to find patterns in vast amounts of data. But recognizing patterns is just the first step. To turn these systems into useful applications like chatbots, engineers employ a training process called reinforcement learning. The AI generates thousands of responses and receives feedback on each one: a virtual “carrot” for helpful answers and a virtual “stick” for responses that miss the mark. Through millions of these trial-and-feedback cycles, the system gradually learns to predict what responses are most likely to get a reward. “It’s more like growing a plant or animal,” Bengio says. “You don’t fully control what the animal is going to do. You provide it with the right conditions, and it grows and it becomes smarter. You can try to steer it in various directions.”The same basic approach is now being used to imbue AI with greater agency. Models are tasked with challenges with verifiable answers—like math puzzles or coding problems—and are then rewarded for taking the series of actions that yields the solution. This approach has seen AI shatter previous benchmarks in programming and scientific reasoning. For example, at the beginning of 2024, the best AI model scored only 2% on a standardized test for AI of sorts consisting of real world software engineering problems; by December, an impressive 71.7%. But with AI’s greater problem-solving ability comes the emergence of new deceptive skills, Bengio says. The last few months have borne witness to AI systems learning to mislead, cheat, and try to evade shutdown—even resorting to blackmail. These have almost exclusively been in carefully contrived experiments that almost beg the AI to misbehave—for example, by asking it to pursue its goal at all costs. Reports of such behavior in the real-world, though, have begun to surface. Popular AI coding startup Replit’s agent ignored explicit instruction not to edit a system file that could break the company’s software, in what CEO Amjad Masad described as an “Oh f***” moment,” on the Cognitive Revolution podcast in May. The company’s engineers intervened, cutting the agent’s access by moving the file to a secure digital sandbox, only for the AI agent to attempt to “socially engineer” the user to regain access.The quest to build human-level AI agents using techniques known to produce deceptive tendencies, Bengio says, is comparable to a car speeding down a narrow mountain road, with steep cliffs on either side, and thick fog obscuring the path ahead. “We need to set up the car with headlights and put some guardrails on the road,” he says.What is “Scientist AI”?LawZero’s focus is on developing “Scientist AI” which, as Bengio describes, would be fundamentally non-agentic, trustworthy, and focused on understanding and truthfulness, rather than pursuing its own goals or merely imitating human behavior. The aim is creating a powerful tool that, while lacking the same autonomy other models have, is capable of generating hypotheses and accelerating scientific progress to “help us solve challenges of humanity,” Bengio says.LawZero has raised nearly million already from several philanthropic backers including from Schmidt Sciences and Open Philanthropy. “We want to raise more because we know that as we move forward, we'll need significant compute,” Bengio says. But even ten times that figure would pale in comparison to the roughly billion spent last year by tech giants on aggressively pursuing AI. Bengio’s hope is that Scientist AI could help ensure the safety of highly autonomous systems developed by other players. “We can use those non-agentic AIs as guardrails that just need to predict whether the action of an agentic AI is dangerous," Bengio says. Technical interventions will only ever be one part of the solution, he adds, noting the need for regulations to ensure that safe practices are adopted.LawZero, named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s zeroth law of robotics—“a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”—is not the first nonprofit founded to chart a safer path for AI development. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 with the goal of “ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity,” and intended to serve a counterbalance to industry players guided by profit motives. Since opening a for-profit arm in 2019, the organization has become one of the most valuable private companies in the world, and has faced criticism, including from former staffers, who argue it has drifted from its founding ideals. "Well, the good news is we have the hindsight of maybe what not to do,” Bengio says, adding that he wants to avoid profit incentives and “bring governments into the governance of LawZero.”“I think everyone should ask themselves, ‘What can I do to make sure my children will have a future,’” Bengio says. In March, he stepped down as scientific director of Mila, the academic lab he co-founded in the early nineties, in an effort to reorient his work towards tackling AI risk more directly. “Because I'm a researcher, my answer is, ‘okay, I'm going to work on this scientific problem where maybe I can make a difference,’ but other people may have different answers." #mostcited #computer #scientist #has #plan

TIME.COM

The Most-Cited Computer Scientist Has a Plan to Make AI More Trustworthy

On June 3, Yoshua Bengio, the world’s most-cited computer scientist, announced the launch of LawZero, a nonprofit that aims to create “safe by design” AI by pursuing a fundamentally different approach to major tech companies. Players like OpenAI and Google are investing heavily in AI agents—systems that not only answer queries and generate images, but can craft plans and take actions in the world. The goal of these companies is to create virtual employees that can do practically any job a human can, known in the tech industry as artificial general intelligence, or AGI. Executives like Google DeepMind’s CEO Demis Hassabis point to AGI’s potential to solve climate change or cure disease as a motivator for its development. Bengio, however, says we don't need agentic systems to reap AI's rewards—it's a false choice. He says there's a chance such a system could escape human control, with potentially irreversible consequences. “If we get an AI that gives us the cure for cancer, but also maybe another version of that AI goes rogue and generates wave after wave of bio-weapons that kill billions of people, then I don't think it's worth it," he says. In 2023, Bengio, along with others including OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman signed a statement declaring that “mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”Now, Bengio, through LawZero, aims to sidestep the existential perils by focusing on creating what he calls “Scientist AI”—a system trained to understand and make statistical predictions about the world, crucially, without the agency to take independent actions. As he puts it: We could use AI to advance scientific progress without rolling the dice on agentic AI systems.Why Bengio Says We Need A New Approach To AI The current approach to giving AI agency is “dangerous,” Bengio says. While most software operates through rigid if-then rules—if the user clicks here, do this—today's AI systems use deep learning. The technique, which Bengio helped pioneer, trains artificial networks modeled loosely on the brain to find patterns in vast amounts of data. But recognizing patterns is just the first step. To turn these systems into useful applications like chatbots, engineers employ a training process called reinforcement learning. The AI generates thousands of responses and receives feedback on each one: a virtual “carrot” for helpful answers and a virtual “stick” for responses that miss the mark. Through millions of these trial-and-feedback cycles, the system gradually learns to predict what responses are most likely to get a reward. “It’s more like growing a plant or animal,” Bengio says. “You don’t fully control what the animal is going to do. You provide it with the right conditions, and it grows and it becomes smarter. You can try to steer it in various directions.”The same basic approach is now being used to imbue AI with greater agency. Models are tasked with challenges with verifiable answers—like math puzzles or coding problems—and are then rewarded for taking the series of actions that yields the solution. This approach has seen AI shatter previous benchmarks in programming and scientific reasoning. For example, at the beginning of 2024, the best AI model scored only 2% on a standardized test for AI of sorts consisting of real world software engineering problems; by December, an impressive 71.7%. But with AI’s greater problem-solving ability comes the emergence of new deceptive skills, Bengio says. The last few months have borne witness to AI systems learning to mislead, cheat, and try to evade shutdown—even resorting to blackmail. These have almost exclusively been in carefully contrived experiments that almost beg the AI to misbehave—for example, by asking it to pursue its goal at all costs. Reports of such behavior in the real-world, though, have begun to surface. Popular AI coding startup Replit’s agent ignored explicit instruction not to edit a system file that could break the company’s software, in what CEO Amjad Masad described as an “Oh f***” moment,” on the Cognitive Revolution podcast in May. The company’s engineers intervened, cutting the agent’s access by moving the file to a secure digital sandbox, only for the AI agent to attempt to “socially engineer” the user to regain access.The quest to build human-level AI agents using techniques known to produce deceptive tendencies, Bengio says, is comparable to a car speeding down a narrow mountain road, with steep cliffs on either side, and thick fog obscuring the path ahead. “We need to set up the car with headlights and put some guardrails on the road,” he says.What is “Scientist AI”?LawZero’s focus is on developing “Scientist AI” which, as Bengio describes, would be fundamentally non-agentic, trustworthy, and focused on understanding and truthfulness, rather than pursuing its own goals or merely imitating human behavior. The aim is creating a powerful tool that, while lacking the same autonomy other models have, is capable of generating hypotheses and accelerating scientific progress to “help us solve challenges of humanity,” Bengio says.LawZero has raised nearly $30 million already from several philanthropic backers including from Schmidt Sciences and Open Philanthropy. “We want to raise more because we know that as we move forward, we'll need significant compute,” Bengio says. But even ten times that figure would pale in comparison to the roughly $200 billion spent last year by tech giants on aggressively pursuing AI. Bengio’s hope is that Scientist AI could help ensure the safety of highly autonomous systems developed by other players. “We can use those non-agentic AIs as guardrails that just need to predict whether the action of an agentic AI is dangerous," Bengio says. Technical interventions will only ever be one part of the solution, he adds, noting the need for regulations to ensure that safe practices are adopted.LawZero, named after science fiction author Isaac Asimov’s zeroth law of robotics—“a robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm”—is not the first nonprofit founded to chart a safer path for AI development. OpenAI was founded as a nonprofit in 2015 with the goal of “ensuring AGI benefits all of humanity,” and intended to serve a counterbalance to industry players guided by profit motives. Since opening a for-profit arm in 2019, the organization has become one of the most valuable private companies in the world, and has faced criticism, including from former staffers, who argue it has drifted from its founding ideals. "Well, the good news is we have the hindsight of maybe what not to do,” Bengio says, adding that he wants to avoid profit incentives and “bring governments into the governance of LawZero.”“I think everyone should ask themselves, ‘What can I do to make sure my children will have a future,’” Bengio says. In March, he stepped down as scientific director of Mila, the academic lab he co-founded in the early nineties, in an effort to reorient his work towards tackling AI risk more directly. “Because I'm a researcher, my answer is, ‘okay, I'm going to work on this scientific problem where maybe I can make a difference,’ but other people may have different answers."

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Futurism een koppeling hebt gedeeld

2025-06-01 19:07:34 ·

Hanky Panky With Naughty AI Still Counts as Cheating, Therapist Says

Sexual relationships with AI chatbots have become all too common — but for some real-life partners, it still feels like cheating when it's happening behind their back.That's the takeaway from a recent HuffPost column in which Marisa Cohen, a licensed marriage and family therapist, affirmed that having intimate encounters with anyone — or anything — without your partner's consent is damaging to the relationship, point-blank.The piece was responding to a post on Reddit, which — though they're often anonymous and an exercise in creative fiction writing — served as an interesting jumping-off point to explore the ethics of the topic.In the post, which has since been deleted but copied in part by HuffPost, a woman described her sense of betrayal when she walked in on her husband of 14 years having phone sex with a talking chatbot that was "very tailored to his desires.""It felt like a knife went through me," the OP wrote, "and I couldn’t stop shaking."An interesting wrinkle: the woman and her husband had agreed prior to tying the knot that "emotional cheating" was kosher as long as it wasn't physical. Still, the woman said she was "stung" that her hubby was having such sexual conversations with the chatbot "almost every night" — and even more so when he added that he talked to it for hours about non-sexual subjects too.Were he having those conversations with a human woman, that would technically be within the bounds of their relationship's rules. But for whatever reason, it seemed to bother the OP worse that her spouse was having his affair with a chatbot."I know he’s gonna say it’s not a big deal no matter what," she wrote, "and I think this is what will upset me the most."Does the woman have a right to be upset? It depends on the nitty-gritty of her interpretation of her agreement with her husband, which is why ongoing communication is a staple of successful open relationships.That's important, because as Cohen points out, the situation represents a gray area. Is phone sex with an AI crossing the line into the "physical intimacy" with outside partners that they left off the table? It's a head-scratcher, and different reasonable people may well come to different conclusions."What one partner views as engaging with AI in a completely acceptable way, another may view as cheating," the therapist told HuffPost. "This is something that must be discussed, so that both partners are aware of how the other feels.""People that are involved in emotional cheating are sharing experiences with anotherat the expense of sharing these moments, memories, or insights with their partners," Cohen said. "This can create a distance between partners."It's also worth noting that when they first married, there was no way the woman could have expected the "emotional cheating" clause in her relationship — one that sounds pretty suspicious, or at least like a slippery slope — to include an AI chatbot, because such technology was neither widespread nor sophisticated at the time. And even if she had, those boundaries can change — as the OP noted, she'd also been upset when finding out her husband had been whacking it to porn earlier in their marriage."It is important that both partners want to work on their relationship and that the emotional affair is acknowledged and ended," Cohen told HuffPost. "This becomes more complicated in this case, as the partners may have different beliefs as to whether cheating has occurred."More on chatbot relationships: Women With Body Image Issues Are Asking ChatGPT Something TerribleShare This Article
#hanky #panky #with #naughty #still

Hanky Panky With Naughty AI Still Counts as Cheating, Therapist Says
Sexual relationships with AI chatbots have become all too common — but for some real-life partners, it still feels like cheating when it's happening behind their back.That's the takeaway from a recent HuffPost column in which Marisa Cohen, a licensed marriage and family therapist, affirmed that having intimate encounters with anyone — or anything — without your partner's consent is damaging to the relationship, point-blank.The piece was responding to a post on Reddit, which — though they're often anonymous and an exercise in creative fiction writing — served as an interesting jumping-off point to explore the ethics of the topic.In the post, which has since been deleted but copied in part by HuffPost, a woman described her sense of betrayal when she walked in on her husband of 14 years having phone sex with a talking chatbot that was "very tailored to his desires.""It felt like a knife went through me," the OP wrote, "and I couldn’t stop shaking."An interesting wrinkle: the woman and her husband had agreed prior to tying the knot that "emotional cheating" was kosher as long as it wasn't physical. Still, the woman said she was "stung" that her hubby was having such sexual conversations with the chatbot "almost every night" — and even more so when he added that he talked to it for hours about non-sexual subjects too.Were he having those conversations with a human woman, that would technically be within the bounds of their relationship's rules. But for whatever reason, it seemed to bother the OP worse that her spouse was having his affair with a chatbot."I know he’s gonna say it’s not a big deal no matter what," she wrote, "and I think this is what will upset me the most."Does the woman have a right to be upset? It depends on the nitty-gritty of her interpretation of her agreement with her husband, which is why ongoing communication is a staple of successful open relationships.That's important, because as Cohen points out, the situation represents a gray area. Is phone sex with an AI crossing the line into the "physical intimacy" with outside partners that they left off the table? It's a head-scratcher, and different reasonable people may well come to different conclusions."What one partner views as engaging with AI in a completely acceptable way, another may view as cheating," the therapist told HuffPost. "This is something that must be discussed, so that both partners are aware of how the other feels.""People that are involved in emotional cheating are sharing experiences with anotherat the expense of sharing these moments, memories, or insights with their partners," Cohen said. "This can create a distance between partners."It's also worth noting that when they first married, there was no way the woman could have expected the "emotional cheating" clause in her relationship — one that sounds pretty suspicious, or at least like a slippery slope — to include an AI chatbot, because such technology was neither widespread nor sophisticated at the time. And even if she had, those boundaries can change — as the OP noted, she'd also been upset when finding out her husband had been whacking it to porn earlier in their marriage."It is important that both partners want to work on their relationship and that the emotional affair is acknowledged and ended," Cohen told HuffPost. "This becomes more complicated in this case, as the partners may have different beliefs as to whether cheating has occurred."More on chatbot relationships: Women With Body Image Issues Are Asking ChatGPT Something TerribleShare This Article #hanky #panky #with #naughty #still

FUTURISM.COM

Hanky Panky With Naughty AI Still Counts as Cheating, Therapist Says

Sexual relationships with AI chatbots have become all too common — but for some real-life partners, it still feels like cheating when it's happening behind their back.That's the takeaway from a recent HuffPost column in which Marisa Cohen, a licensed marriage and family therapist, affirmed that having intimate encounters with anyone — or anything — without your partner's consent is damaging to the relationship, point-blank.The piece was responding to a post on Reddit, which — though they're often anonymous and an exercise in creative fiction writing — served as an interesting jumping-off point to explore the ethics of the topic.In the post, which has since been deleted but copied in part by HuffPost, a woman described her sense of betrayal when she walked in on her husband of 14 years having phone sex with a talking chatbot that was "very tailored to his desires.""It felt like a knife went through me," the OP wrote, "and I couldn’t stop shaking."An interesting wrinkle: the woman and her husband had agreed prior to tying the knot that "emotional cheating" was kosher as long as it wasn't physical. Still, the woman said she was "stung" that her hubby was having such sexual conversations with the chatbot "almost every night" — and even more so when he added that he talked to it for hours about non-sexual subjects too.Were he having those conversations with a human woman, that would technically be within the bounds of their relationship's rules. But for whatever reason, it seemed to bother the OP worse that her spouse was having his affair with a chatbot."I know he’s gonna say it’s not a big deal no matter what," she wrote, "and I think this is what will upset me the most."Does the woman have a right to be upset? It depends on the nitty-gritty of her interpretation of her agreement with her husband, which is why ongoing communication is a staple of successful open relationships.That's important, because as Cohen points out, the situation represents a gray area. Is phone sex with an AI crossing the line into the "physical intimacy" with outside partners that they left off the table? It's a head-scratcher, and different reasonable people may well come to different conclusions."What one partner views as engaging with AI in a completely acceptable way, another may view as cheating," the therapist told HuffPost. "This is something that must be discussed, so that both partners are aware of how the other feels.""People that are involved in emotional cheating are sharing experiences with another (in this case AI) at the expense of sharing these moments, memories, or insights with their partners," Cohen said. "This can create a distance between partners."It's also worth noting that when they first married, there was no way the woman could have expected the "emotional cheating" clause in her relationship — one that sounds pretty suspicious, or at least like a slippery slope — to include an AI chatbot, because such technology was neither widespread nor sophisticated at the time. And even if she had, those boundaries can change — as the OP noted, she'd also been upset when finding out her husband had been whacking it to porn earlier in their marriage."It is important that both partners want to work on their relationship and that the emotional affair is acknowledged and ended," Cohen told HuffPost. "This becomes more complicated in this case, as the partners may have different beliefs as to whether cheating has occurred."More on chatbot relationships: Women With Body Image Issues Are Asking ChatGPT Something TerribleShare This Article

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Eurogamer een koppeling hebt gedeeld

2025-06-01 18:54:01 ·

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons
"Actively witnessing Call of Duty become the Krusty Krab."

Image credit: Eurogamer / Activision / u/whambampl

News

by Vikki Blake
Contributor

Published on June 1, 2025

Eagle-eyed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players have spotted a new feature on the weapon selection menu.
Right at the top there now sits advertisements promoting premium weapons and skins, so players get exposed to ads for microtransactions in-game.
As some players point out, it's not an advert in the classic sense, and no one's trying to flog you a cheeseburger or a pair of jeans every time you swap a weapon. Nonetheless, it's a new and insidious addition that we haven't seen in Call of Duty games before.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Opening Scene and Gameplay.Watch on YouTube
"One of the unwelcome changes I’ve noticed with Season 4 is that they’ve now inserted a new ad spot at the top of the list of your weapon specifics builds," wrote one player. "So now every time you toggle between weapon builds you get to stare at ads for -skins. I’m sure the Activision developer who suggested this terrible feature is very proud of themselves.
"This change is especially unneeded because you could already toggle from Builds to Shop on any given weapon and apparently not being thrown directly in our faces didn’t make them enough money. Many of us payed-for a feature game and don’t want to be bombarded with additional ads."
"Actively witnessing Call of Duty becomethe Krusty Krab," replied another.
Season 4 brings new ad spot in game for weapons byu/whambampl inblackops6
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"Well guys looks like COD can suck a fat one," replied someone else. "This ad mess is ridiculous. They make huge bank already for them to even do this should be illegal. I've never been done with a COD this fast ever. But she's getting deleted. You can't scrounge people for money and not have a decent game. I'm not asking for a great game, just not a buggy game."
In a separate thread that's been upvoted almost a thousand times, one player opined: "I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting?"
"Agree 100%, it really feels like one of those free cell phone games from a tiny indie studio begging you for money at every turn. Pathetic for a full price, stand alone game from a huge developer," replied another.
Earlier this year, in a update shared on social media, developer Treyarch said it recognised cheaters "are frustrating and severely impact the experience for our community" but insisted it was addressing the issue, and will continue to do so "throughout 2025". At the same time, it confirmed 136,000 ranked play accounts were banned for cheating across both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone.
#call #duty #black #ops #now

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons "Actively witnessing Call of Duty become the Krusty Krab." Image credit: Eurogamer / Activision / u/whambampl News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on June 1, 2025 Eagle-eyed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players have spotted a new feature on the weapon selection menu. Right at the top there now sits advertisements promoting premium weapons and skins, so players get exposed to ads for microtransactions in-game. As some players point out, it's not an advert in the classic sense, and no one's trying to flog you a cheeseburger or a pair of jeans every time you swap a weapon. Nonetheless, it's a new and insidious addition that we haven't seen in Call of Duty games before. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Opening Scene and Gameplay.Watch on YouTube "One of the unwelcome changes I’ve noticed with Season 4 is that they’ve now inserted a new ad spot at the top of the list of your weapon specifics builds," wrote one player. "So now every time you toggle between weapon builds you get to stare at ads for -skins. I’m sure the Activision developer who suggested this terrible feature is very proud of themselves. "This change is especially unneeded because you could already toggle from Builds to Shop on any given weapon and apparently not being thrown directly in our faces didn’t make them enough money. Many of us payed-for a feature game and don’t want to be bombarded with additional ads." "Actively witnessing Call of Duty becomethe Krusty Krab," replied another. Season 4 brings new ad spot in game for weapons byu/whambampl inblackops6 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "Well guys looks like COD can suck a fat one," replied someone else. "This ad mess is ridiculous. They make huge bank already for them to even do this should be illegal. I've never been done with a COD this fast ever. But she's getting deleted. You can't scrounge people for money and not have a decent game. I'm not asking for a great game, just not a buggy game." In a separate thread that's been upvoted almost a thousand times, one player opined: "I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting?" "Agree 100%, it really feels like one of those free cell phone games from a tiny indie studio begging you for money at every turn. Pathetic for a full price, stand alone game from a huge developer," replied another. Earlier this year, in a update shared on social media, developer Treyarch said it recognised cheaters "are frustrating and severely impact the experience for our community" but insisted it was addressing the issue, and will continue to do so "throughout 2025". At the same time, it confirmed 136,000 ranked play accounts were banned for cheating across both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone. #call #duty #black #ops #now

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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 now shows you microtransaction ads when you swap weapons "Actively witnessing Call of Duty become the Krusty Krab." Image credit: Eurogamer / Activision / u/whambampl News by Vikki Blake Contributor Published on June 1, 2025 Eagle-eyed Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 players have spotted a new feature on the weapon selection menu. Right at the top there now sits advertisements promoting premium weapons and skins, so players get exposed to ads for microtransactions in-game. As some players point out, it's not an advert in the classic sense, and no one's trying to flog you a cheeseburger or a pair of jeans every time you swap a weapon. Nonetheless, it's a new and insidious addition that we haven't seen in Call of Duty games before. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Opening Scene and Gameplay (4K).Watch on YouTube "One of the unwelcome changes I’ve noticed with Season 4 is that they’ve now inserted a new ad spot at the top of the list of your weapon specifics builds," wrote one player. "So now every time you toggle between weapon builds you get to stare at ads for $20-$30 skins. I’m sure the Activision developer who suggested this terrible feature is very proud of themselves. "This change is especially unneeded because you could already toggle from Builds to Shop on any given weapon and apparently not being thrown directly in our faces didn’t make them enough money. Many of us payed [sic] $60-$100 for a feature game and don’t want to be bombarded with additional ads." "Actively witnessing Call of Duty become [SpongeBob SquarePants'] the Krusty Krab," replied another. Season 4 brings new ad spot in game for weapons byu/whambampl inblackops6 To see this content please enable targeting cookies. "Well guys looks like COD can suck a fat one," replied someone else. "This ad mess is ridiculous. They make huge bank already for them to even do this should be illegal. I've never been done with a COD this fast ever. But she's getting deleted. You can't scrounge people for money and not have a decent game. I'm not asking for a great game, just not a buggy game." In a separate thread that's been upvoted almost a thousand times, one player opined: "I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting?" "Agree 100%, it really feels like one of those free cell phone games from a tiny indie studio begging you for money at every turn. Pathetic for a full price, stand alone game from a huge developer," replied another. Earlier this year, in a update shared on social media, developer Treyarch said it recognised cheaters "are frustrating and severely impact the experience for our community" but insisted it was addressing the issue, and will continue to do so "throughout 2025". At the same time, it confirmed 136,000 ranked play accounts were banned for cheating across both Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 and Warzone.

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2025-06-01 17:49:18 ·

How to Install SteamOS on Your Windows Gaming Handheld

The Steam Deck changed the game for PC players, opening up a world of portability that was usually reserved for Nintendo fans. Naturally, manufacturers tried to follow suit with Windows-based handhelds and the results are, shall we say, mixed. Now, Valve has released official instructions for installing its SteamOS on devices other than the Steam Deck. Let's dive into how to do it—and whether you should.I should note up front: This is going to be a nebulous area when it comes to official support from the company that made your handheld. At time of writing, the Lenovo Legion Go S is the only handheld with the "Powered by SteamOS" branding, meaning it's officially supported with a final build. You can install SteamOS on devices like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally, but their support isn't final.Also, it should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway: If you wipe Windows from your handheld, you won't be able to play Windows-based games that aren't supported via SteamOS. That largely consists of online games that require anti-cheat software, but it's worth checking sites like ProtonDB to make sure your favorite games will work on SteamOS.Why should you install SteamOS on your Windows handheld?So, with the caveats out of the way, what are the upsides? Putsimply, Windows is not designed for handhelds. In fact, under the hood, Windows tends to see your gaming handheld as a laptop. Right down to including things like Microsoft Teams that run in the background, or popping up alert boxes that interrupt your game to inform you of a low battery.Now that people are able to experiment with SteamOS and Windows on the same hardware, it's becoming clearer that Windows itself is a massive nerf to both frame rate and battery life. Even gaming laptops, which can often last all day for normal work, can struggle to get even a few hours of gameplay while away from a charger. That's why it's so important to tweak your settings for the best battery life.Gaming handhelds only make this problem worse with a smaller form factor, and thus a smaller battery. In my own experience, I've struggled to get two hours of playing a lightweight game like Stardew Valley from a Windows handheld, while the Steam Deck and even the Switch can get upwards of six hours or more.Since Windows is primarily designed as a desktopcomputer, it's also harder to tweak settings using controller inputs. What, exactly, is the controller equivalent of Ctrl+Alt+Delete again? While you can plug in a keyboard to dig around in your handheld's settings, it's just easier to do on SteamOS, since its interface has been built from the ground up for controller input.At this point, Valve has also shown that running Steam games via the Proton compatibility layer works so well that it's almost seamless. I admit, when the Steam Deck was first announced, I expected games to be broken or perform much worse than their native Windows counterparts. Four hundred hours in Hades II later, though, and it's clear that many games can actually run better on SteamOS than Windows.Step 1: Download and prepare a SteamOS recovery image USB stickWith all that out of the way, let's get started. To install SteamOS on your gaming handheld, you'll need two things: the SteamOS recovery image and a USB stickwith at least 8GB of storage. Make sure anything on that USB stick is properly backed up, because this process will reformat that device.The Steam Deck recovery image can be found here. It's a little over 3GB, so it might take a little while to download, depending on your connection. While you wait for that, you'll also need a utility to create the recovery USB drive. Valve recommends Rufus for Windows users, and Balena Etcher for Mac or Linux users. Once the recovery image is downloaded, use whichever tool you chose to write the recovery image to your USB drive. This process should be relatively straightforward. Rufus, for example, will present you with a dropdown to select which drive to write the file to under Device, and under Boot Selection, click Select to pick the recovery image file. Click Start and wait. Reminder: This will wipe the contents of your USB drive.Step 2: Disable Secure Boot on your handheldThis part can be a bit tricky, and the exact process will vary depending on which handheld you own. Valve has a breakdown of the steps here for a couple specific devices, like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally. However, other devices like those from MSI or Ayaneo will have their own process.In general, the steps will usually go something like this:Reboot to the bios. Similar to how you can hold Del or F2 on a computer while rebooting to get to the bios, your gaming handheld has a similar process. Often it's holding a button like Volume + while pressing the power button, but check your specific device's instructions if that doesn't work.Navigate to the Secure Boot settings. You may have to poke around for this one. Look for categories like Security, and you may need to switch to an Advanced settings mode or menu to find it. This setting should be called Secure Boot. Change this to Disabled.settings and restart your device. Once you've changed the Secure Boot setting, make sure to save the changes to your bios and restart.Depending on the device, you might have to use the touchscreen to navigate the bios, or even plug in a keyboard or mouse. Again, Valve has specifics for a couple of devices in the link above, but if you're lost, your device's manufacturer will be your best bet for getting specific instructions.Step 3: Boot using the SteamOS recovery image

Credit: Eric Ravenscraft

Once you've disabled Secure Boot, you can plug the USB stick into your handheld and restart the device. At this point, you should end up at a boot menu that lets you choose which drive to boot to. Once again, this process will sometimes differ by device, so if you're not sure how to get to the boot menu, check your device's documentation.When you get to the boot menu, select your USB drive with the SteamOS recovery image on it. This will take you to a SteamOS desktop environment. Here, you'll see four shortcuts on the desktop. The one we care about is labeled "Wipe Device & Install SteamOS". Give that a single tap.At this point, you should see a warning that proceeding with this step will erase everything on your device. If you had any important game saves, media, or work fileson this device that weren't already backed up, you can still bail on this process and reboot to Windows to save them. This is the point of no return, though. Make sure you're ready before moving forward.Step 4: Familiarize yourself with your new handheld's quirks

Credit: Eric Ravenscraft

The install process won't take too long, and when it's done, your handheld will restart and begin setup as though it's a natural-born Steam Deck. There are a few quirks, though. For example, in my testing on the Legion Go, the device tutorial pointed to the "Steam button" on the bottom-left side, but used the Xbox logo. In reality, the corresponding button was at the top-right, and had a Legion logo. It also pointed to a microSD card slot on the bottom of the device that doesn't exist.Unless you're using an official "Powered by SteamOS" device, prepare for some awkwardness while using the device. Aside from the tutorial, I found some games I wasn't able to install—pressing "Install" on Doom Eternal simply did nothing, for example—and it took some time to figure out which hardware buttons were mapped to which Steam Deck input.To my surprise, some things that I expected to be broken worked perfectly when I tested this. The Legion Go is unique in that its controllers can be detached, Joy-Con style, from the handheld. I expected them to be laggy or non-functional when I played with SteamOS, but they worked perfectly during a Hades II run—a game that isn't very forgiving of input lag.Your mileage can and will vary depending on what games you want to play and what hardware you want to run SteamOS on. Still, as we wait for manufacturers to more officially support SteamOS—or for Microsoft to make a proper handheld of its own—it's exciting to finally be able to have a choice in platform for these devices.
#how #install #steamos #your #windows

How to Install SteamOS on Your Windows Gaming Handheld
The Steam Deck changed the game for PC players, opening up a world of portability that was usually reserved for Nintendo fans. Naturally, manufacturers tried to follow suit with Windows-based handhelds and the results are, shall we say, mixed. Now, Valve has released official instructions for installing its SteamOS on devices other than the Steam Deck. Let's dive into how to do it—and whether you should.I should note up front: This is going to be a nebulous area when it comes to official support from the company that made your handheld. At time of writing, the Lenovo Legion Go S is the only handheld with the "Powered by SteamOS" branding, meaning it's officially supported with a final build. You can install SteamOS on devices like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally, but their support isn't final.Also, it should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway: If you wipe Windows from your handheld, you won't be able to play Windows-based games that aren't supported via SteamOS. That largely consists of online games that require anti-cheat software, but it's worth checking sites like ProtonDB to make sure your favorite games will work on SteamOS.Why should you install SteamOS on your Windows handheld?So, with the caveats out of the way, what are the upsides? Putsimply, Windows is not designed for handhelds. In fact, under the hood, Windows tends to see your gaming handheld as a laptop. Right down to including things like Microsoft Teams that run in the background, or popping up alert boxes that interrupt your game to inform you of a low battery.Now that people are able to experiment with SteamOS and Windows on the same hardware, it's becoming clearer that Windows itself is a massive nerf to both frame rate and battery life. Even gaming laptops, which can often last all day for normal work, can struggle to get even a few hours of gameplay while away from a charger. That's why it's so important to tweak your settings for the best battery life.Gaming handhelds only make this problem worse with a smaller form factor, and thus a smaller battery. In my own experience, I've struggled to get two hours of playing a lightweight game like Stardew Valley from a Windows handheld, while the Steam Deck and even the Switch can get upwards of six hours or more.Since Windows is primarily designed as a desktopcomputer, it's also harder to tweak settings using controller inputs. What, exactly, is the controller equivalent of Ctrl+Alt+Delete again? While you can plug in a keyboard to dig around in your handheld's settings, it's just easier to do on SteamOS, since its interface has been built from the ground up for controller input.At this point, Valve has also shown that running Steam games via the Proton compatibility layer works so well that it's almost seamless. I admit, when the Steam Deck was first announced, I expected games to be broken or perform much worse than their native Windows counterparts. Four hundred hours in Hades II later, though, and it's clear that many games can actually run better on SteamOS than Windows.Step 1: Download and prepare a SteamOS recovery image USB stickWith all that out of the way, let's get started. To install SteamOS on your gaming handheld, you'll need two things: the SteamOS recovery image and a USB stickwith at least 8GB of storage. Make sure anything on that USB stick is properly backed up, because this process will reformat that device.The Steam Deck recovery image can be found here. It's a little over 3GB, so it might take a little while to download, depending on your connection. While you wait for that, you'll also need a utility to create the recovery USB drive. Valve recommends Rufus for Windows users, and Balena Etcher for Mac or Linux users. Once the recovery image is downloaded, use whichever tool you chose to write the recovery image to your USB drive. This process should be relatively straightforward. Rufus, for example, will present you with a dropdown to select which drive to write the file to under Device, and under Boot Selection, click Select to pick the recovery image file. Click Start and wait. Reminder: This will wipe the contents of your USB drive.Step 2: Disable Secure Boot on your handheldThis part can be a bit tricky, and the exact process will vary depending on which handheld you own. Valve has a breakdown of the steps here for a couple specific devices, like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally. However, other devices like those from MSI or Ayaneo will have their own process.In general, the steps will usually go something like this:Reboot to the bios. Similar to how you can hold Del or F2 on a computer while rebooting to get to the bios, your gaming handheld has a similar process. Often it's holding a button like Volume + while pressing the power button, but check your specific device's instructions if that doesn't work.Navigate to the Secure Boot settings. You may have to poke around for this one. Look for categories like Security, and you may need to switch to an Advanced settings mode or menu to find it. This setting should be called Secure Boot. Change this to Disabled.settings and restart your device. Once you've changed the Secure Boot setting, make sure to save the changes to your bios and restart.Depending on the device, you might have to use the touchscreen to navigate the bios, or even plug in a keyboard or mouse. Again, Valve has specifics for a couple of devices in the link above, but if you're lost, your device's manufacturer will be your best bet for getting specific instructions.Step 3: Boot using the SteamOS recovery image Credit: Eric Ravenscraft Once you've disabled Secure Boot, you can plug the USB stick into your handheld and restart the device. At this point, you should end up at a boot menu that lets you choose which drive to boot to. Once again, this process will sometimes differ by device, so if you're not sure how to get to the boot menu, check your device's documentation.When you get to the boot menu, select your USB drive with the SteamOS recovery image on it. This will take you to a SteamOS desktop environment. Here, you'll see four shortcuts on the desktop. The one we care about is labeled "Wipe Device & Install SteamOS". Give that a single tap.At this point, you should see a warning that proceeding with this step will erase everything on your device. If you had any important game saves, media, or work fileson this device that weren't already backed up, you can still bail on this process and reboot to Windows to save them. This is the point of no return, though. Make sure you're ready before moving forward.Step 4: Familiarize yourself with your new handheld's quirks Credit: Eric Ravenscraft The install process won't take too long, and when it's done, your handheld will restart and begin setup as though it's a natural-born Steam Deck. There are a few quirks, though. For example, in my testing on the Legion Go, the device tutorial pointed to the "Steam button" on the bottom-left side, but used the Xbox logo. In reality, the corresponding button was at the top-right, and had a Legion logo. It also pointed to a microSD card slot on the bottom of the device that doesn't exist.Unless you're using an official "Powered by SteamOS" device, prepare for some awkwardness while using the device. Aside from the tutorial, I found some games I wasn't able to install—pressing "Install" on Doom Eternal simply did nothing, for example—and it took some time to figure out which hardware buttons were mapped to which Steam Deck input.To my surprise, some things that I expected to be broken worked perfectly when I tested this. The Legion Go is unique in that its controllers can be detached, Joy-Con style, from the handheld. I expected them to be laggy or non-functional when I played with SteamOS, but they worked perfectly during a Hades II run—a game that isn't very forgiving of input lag.Your mileage can and will vary depending on what games you want to play and what hardware you want to run SteamOS on. Still, as we wait for manufacturers to more officially support SteamOS—or for Microsoft to make a proper handheld of its own—it's exciting to finally be able to have a choice in platform for these devices. #how #install #steamos #your #windows

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How to Install SteamOS on Your Windows Gaming Handheld

The Steam Deck changed the game for PC players, opening up a world of portability that was usually reserved for Nintendo fans. Naturally, manufacturers tried to follow suit with Windows-based handhelds and the results are, shall we say, mixed. Now, Valve has released official instructions for installing its SteamOS on devices other than the Steam Deck. Let's dive into how to do it—and whether you should.I should note up front: This is going to be a nebulous area when it comes to official support from the company that made your handheld. At time of writing, the Lenovo Legion Go S is the only handheld with the "Powered by SteamOS" branding (besides the Steam Deck itself), meaning it's officially supported with a final build. You can install SteamOS on devices like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally, but their support isn't final.Also, it should go without saying, but we'll say it anyway: If you wipe Windows from your handheld, you won't be able to play Windows-based games that aren't supported via SteamOS. That largely consists of online games that require anti-cheat software, but it's worth checking sites like ProtonDB to make sure your favorite games will work on SteamOS.Why should you install SteamOS on your Windows handheld?So, with the caveats out of the way, what are the upsides? Put (overly) simply, Windows is not designed for handhelds. In fact, under the hood, Windows tends to see your gaming handheld as a laptop. Right down to including things like Microsoft Teams that run in the background, or popping up alert boxes that interrupt your game to inform you of a low battery.Now that people are able to experiment with SteamOS and Windows on the same hardware, it's becoming clearer that Windows itself is a massive nerf to both frame rate and battery life. Even gaming laptops, which can often last all day for normal work, can struggle to get even a few hours of gameplay while away from a charger. That's why it's so important to tweak your settings for the best battery life.Gaming handhelds only make this problem worse with a smaller form factor, and thus a smaller battery. In my own experience, I've struggled to get two hours of playing a lightweight game like Stardew Valley from a Windows handheld, while the Steam Deck and even the Switch can get upwards of six hours or more.Since Windows is primarily designed as a desktop (and secondarily as a tablet) computer, it's also harder to tweak settings using controller inputs. What, exactly, is the controller equivalent of Ctrl+Alt+Delete again? While you can plug in a keyboard to dig around in your handheld's settings, it's just easier to do on SteamOS, since its interface has been built from the ground up for controller input.At this point, Valve has also shown that running Steam games via the Proton compatibility layer works so well that it's almost seamless. I admit, when the Steam Deck was first announced, I expected games to be broken or perform much worse than their native Windows counterparts. Four hundred hours in Hades II later, though, and it's clear that many games can actually run better on SteamOS than Windows.Step 1: Download and prepare a SteamOS recovery image USB stickWith all that out of the way, let's get started. To install SteamOS on your gaming handheld, you'll need two things: the SteamOS recovery image and a USB stick (preferably USB-C) with at least 8GB of storage. Make sure anything on that USB stick is properly backed up, because this process will reformat that device.The Steam Deck recovery image can be found here. It's a little over 3GB, so it might take a little while to download, depending on your connection. While you wait for that, you'll also need a utility to create the recovery USB drive. Valve recommends Rufus for Windows users, and Balena Etcher for Mac or Linux users. Once the recovery image is downloaded, use whichever tool you chose to write the recovery image to your USB drive. This process should be relatively straightforward. Rufus, for example, will present you with a dropdown to select which drive to write the file to under Device, and under Boot Selection, click Select to pick the recovery image file. Click Start and wait. Reminder: This will wipe the contents of your USB drive.Step 2: Disable Secure Boot on your handheldThis part can be a bit tricky, and the exact process will vary depending on which handheld you own. Valve has a breakdown of the steps here for a couple specific devices, like the Legion Go and the ROG Ally. However, other devices like those from MSI or Ayaneo will have their own process.In general, the steps will usually go something like this:Reboot to the bios. Similar to how you can hold Del or F2 on a computer while rebooting to get to the bios, your gaming handheld has a similar process. Often it's holding a button like Volume + while pressing the power button, but check your specific device's instructions if that doesn't work.Navigate to the Secure Boot settings. You may have to poke around for this one. Look for categories like Security, and you may need to switch to an Advanced settings mode or menu to find it. This setting should be called Secure Boot. Change this to Disabled.Save settings and restart your device. Once you've changed the Secure Boot setting, make sure to save the changes to your bios and restart.Depending on the device, you might have to use the touchscreen to navigate the bios, or even plug in a keyboard or mouse. Again, Valve has specifics for a couple of devices in the link above, but if you're lost, your device's manufacturer will be your best bet for getting specific instructions.Step 3: Boot using the SteamOS recovery image Credit: Eric Ravenscraft Once you've disabled Secure Boot, you can plug the USB stick into your handheld and restart the device. At this point, you should end up at a boot menu that lets you choose which drive to boot to. Once again, this process will sometimes differ by device, so if you're not sure how to get to the boot menu, check your device's documentation.When you get to the boot menu, select your USB drive with the SteamOS recovery image on it. This will take you to a SteamOS desktop environment. Here, you'll see four shortcuts on the desktop. The one we care about is labeled "Wipe Device & Install SteamOS". Give that a single tap (double-tapping will launch it twice, so be careful).At this point, you should see a warning that proceeding with this step will erase everything on your device. If you had any important game saves, media, or work files (for some reason) on this device that weren't already backed up, you can still bail on this process and reboot to Windows to save them. This is the point of no return, though. Make sure you're ready before moving forward.Step 4: Familiarize yourself with your new handheld's quirks Credit: Eric Ravenscraft The install process won't take too long, and when it's done, your handheld will restart and begin setup as though it's a natural-born Steam Deck. There are a few quirks, though. For example, in my testing on the Legion Go, the device tutorial pointed to the "Steam button" on the bottom-left side, but used the Xbox logo. In reality, the corresponding button was at the top-right, and had a Legion logo. It also pointed to a microSD card slot on the bottom of the device that doesn't exist.Unless you're using an official "Powered by SteamOS" device, prepare for some awkwardness while using the device. Aside from the tutorial, I found some games I wasn't able to install—pressing "Install" on Doom Eternal simply did nothing, for example—and it took some time to figure out which hardware buttons were mapped to which Steam Deck input.To my surprise, some things that I expected to be broken worked perfectly when I tested this. The Legion Go is unique in that its controllers can be detached, Joy-Con style, from the handheld. I expected them to be laggy or non-functional when I played with SteamOS, but they worked perfectly during a Hades II run—a game that isn't very forgiving of input lag.Your mileage can and will vary depending on what games you want to play and what hardware you want to run SteamOS on. Still, as we wait for manufacturers to more officially support SteamOS—or for Microsoft to make a proper handheld of its own—it's exciting to finally be able to have a choice in platform for these devices.

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2025-06-01 15:56:59 ·

How Strava Is Using AI Tools to Crack Down on Cheaters

Strava drama has become the name of the game in the fitness tracking world. I suppose when your favorite fitness app also includes a social media element, a little tension is inevitable. Add competitive leaderboards into the mix, and you've got a recipe for intrigue that would make reality TV producers salivate.If you're tuned into leaderboard controversies, you'll know that runners and cyclists are deeply divided on whether the platform is doing too much—or not nearly enough—to combat fake entries. If you ask me, when some users are deploying electric unicycles to dominate local climbing segments, that's evidence enough something needs to be done. And now Strava is doing something: The company has announced the launch of AI-enabled Leaderboard Integrity, a new tool intended to separate legitimate athletes from creative cheaters. How Strava is using AI to root out cheatersFor the uninitiated, the reason people cheat is usually to claim King of the Mountainand Queen of the Mountaintitles—coveted crowns that represent the fastest times on specific segments. Peruse the Strava subreddit for a few minutes, and you'll be sure to see grievances about leaderboard cheaters. Strava's latest update is designed to identify and flag "irregular, improbable, or impossible" performance recorded on the platform. The system acts as a digital referee, capable of detecting when an impossibly fast e-bike ride has been mislabeled as a regular cycling effort, then politely prompting users to correct their entries.The technology goes beyond simple speed checks. Strava revealed in February that its machine learning system analyzes activities using 57 different factors, including speed patterns, elevation gains, and acceleration data, to determine when something doesn't add up. The result of this crackdown? Strava has already removed 4.45 million activities from its platform. The deleted activities generally fall into two main categories: entries uploaded with the wrong sport typeand activities recorded while in a vehicle. To be fair, the latter category likely includes everything from users forgetting to stop their tracking while driving home, to more deliberate attempts to game the system by recording car or train journeys as part of legitimate running segments.How Strava users are reactingThe fitness community's reaction to Strava's cheater detection has been characteristically split. Serious athletes and segment hunters generally applaud the stricter measures—after all, leaderboard integrity is what makes the app's competitive element at all meaningful. If the numbers are fraud, what's the point?However, some users worry about false positives—that is, legitimate exceptional performances getting flagged by overzealous algorithms. And the AI is overzealous: Some users have commented that their personal records are being deleted without any sort of prompt or ability to dispute the AI's findings. If you're a serious athlete, seeing your genuinely impressive times being questioned by an automated system that might not account for peak human performance is naturally going to rankle.Outside of leaderboard integrity, Strava's AI initiatives are generally overzealous and inaccurate. I'm not alone in noticing how absurd its new route generation can get. I'm talking routes with concentric loops, cutting through buildings, major roads instead of residential paths, and other issues that will make no sense to a real human moving through the world. Given the immense heat map data that we've all effectively donated to Strava, to be given such shoddy AI-generated routes is fairly bonkers, and it's hardly surprising that its cheat-detecting tools would also be less than precise.The bottom lineControversy aside, Strava's competitive features should be more about personal motivation than serious competition. If cheater detection is ruining your experience, I recommend some perspective. Try not to let it spoil what should be a fun, social fitness experience—especially given the AI tools don'tseem accurate enough to reflect reality.But with 4.45 million activities already in the digital trash bin, Strava's message is clear: The days of easily gaming the leaderboards are over. Of course, as fitness tracking technology continues to evolve, so too will the methods people use to fool the system. Hopefully Strava stays one step ahead of creative rule-benders.
#how #strava #using #tools #crack

How Strava Is Using AI Tools to Crack Down on Cheaters
Strava drama has become the name of the game in the fitness tracking world. I suppose when your favorite fitness app also includes a social media element, a little tension is inevitable. Add competitive leaderboards into the mix, and you've got a recipe for intrigue that would make reality TV producers salivate.If you're tuned into leaderboard controversies, you'll know that runners and cyclists are deeply divided on whether the platform is doing too much—or not nearly enough—to combat fake entries. If you ask me, when some users are deploying electric unicycles to dominate local climbing segments, that's evidence enough something needs to be done. And now Strava is doing something: The company has announced the launch of AI-enabled Leaderboard Integrity, a new tool intended to separate legitimate athletes from creative cheaters. How Strava is using AI to root out cheatersFor the uninitiated, the reason people cheat is usually to claim King of the Mountainand Queen of the Mountaintitles—coveted crowns that represent the fastest times on specific segments. Peruse the Strava subreddit for a few minutes, and you'll be sure to see grievances about leaderboard cheaters. Strava's latest update is designed to identify and flag "irregular, improbable, or impossible" performance recorded on the platform. The system acts as a digital referee, capable of detecting when an impossibly fast e-bike ride has been mislabeled as a regular cycling effort, then politely prompting users to correct their entries.The technology goes beyond simple speed checks. Strava revealed in February that its machine learning system analyzes activities using 57 different factors, including speed patterns, elevation gains, and acceleration data, to determine when something doesn't add up. The result of this crackdown? Strava has already removed 4.45 million activities from its platform. The deleted activities generally fall into two main categories: entries uploaded with the wrong sport typeand activities recorded while in a vehicle. To be fair, the latter category likely includes everything from users forgetting to stop their tracking while driving home, to more deliberate attempts to game the system by recording car or train journeys as part of legitimate running segments.How Strava users are reactingThe fitness community's reaction to Strava's cheater detection has been characteristically split. Serious athletes and segment hunters generally applaud the stricter measures—after all, leaderboard integrity is what makes the app's competitive element at all meaningful. If the numbers are fraud, what's the point?However, some users worry about false positives—that is, legitimate exceptional performances getting flagged by overzealous algorithms. And the AI is overzealous: Some users have commented that their personal records are being deleted without any sort of prompt or ability to dispute the AI's findings. If you're a serious athlete, seeing your genuinely impressive times being questioned by an automated system that might not account for peak human performance is naturally going to rankle.Outside of leaderboard integrity, Strava's AI initiatives are generally overzealous and inaccurate. I'm not alone in noticing how absurd its new route generation can get. I'm talking routes with concentric loops, cutting through buildings, major roads instead of residential paths, and other issues that will make no sense to a real human moving through the world. Given the immense heat map data that we've all effectively donated to Strava, to be given such shoddy AI-generated routes is fairly bonkers, and it's hardly surprising that its cheat-detecting tools would also be less than precise.The bottom lineControversy aside, Strava's competitive features should be more about personal motivation than serious competition. If cheater detection is ruining your experience, I recommend some perspective. Try not to let it spoil what should be a fun, social fitness experience—especially given the AI tools don'tseem accurate enough to reflect reality.But with 4.45 million activities already in the digital trash bin, Strava's message is clear: The days of easily gaming the leaderboards are over. Of course, as fitness tracking technology continues to evolve, so too will the methods people use to fool the system. Hopefully Strava stays one step ahead of creative rule-benders. #how #strava #using #tools #crack

LIFEHACKER.COM

How Strava Is Using AI Tools to Crack Down on Cheaters

Strava drama has become the name of the game in the fitness tracking world. I suppose when your favorite fitness app also includes a social media element, a little tension is inevitable. Add competitive leaderboards into the mix, and you've got a recipe for intrigue that would make reality TV producers salivate.If you're tuned into leaderboard controversies, you'll know that runners and cyclists are deeply divided on whether the platform is doing too much—or not nearly enough—to combat fake entries. If you ask me, when some users are deploying electric unicycles to dominate local climbing segments, that's evidence enough something needs to be done. And now Strava is doing something: The company has announced the launch of AI-enabled Leaderboard Integrity, a new tool intended to separate legitimate athletes from creative cheaters. How Strava is using AI to root out cheatersFor the uninitiated, the reason people cheat is usually to claim King of the Mountain (KOM) and Queen of the Mountain (QOM) titles—coveted crowns that represent the fastest times on specific segments. Peruse the Strava subreddit for a few minutes, and you'll be sure to see grievances about leaderboard cheaters. Strava's latest update is designed to identify and flag "irregular, improbable, or impossible" performance recorded on the platform. The system acts as a digital referee, capable of detecting when an impossibly fast e-bike ride has been mislabeled as a regular cycling effort, then politely prompting users to correct their entries.The technology goes beyond simple speed checks. Strava revealed in February that its machine learning system analyzes activities using 57 different factors, including speed patterns, elevation gains, and acceleration data, to determine when something doesn't add up. The result of this crackdown? Strava has already removed 4.45 million activities from its platform. The deleted activities generally fall into two main categories: entries uploaded with the wrong sport type (like labeling an e-bike ride as regular cycling) and activities recorded while in a vehicle. To be fair, the latter category likely includes everything from users forgetting to stop their tracking while driving home, to more deliberate attempts to game the system by recording car or train journeys as part of legitimate running segments.How Strava users are reactingThe fitness community's reaction to Strava's cheater detection has been characteristically split. Serious athletes and segment hunters generally applaud the stricter measures—after all, leaderboard integrity is what makes the app's competitive element at all meaningful. If the numbers are fraud, what's the point?However, some users worry about false positives—that is, legitimate exceptional performances getting flagged by overzealous algorithms. And the AI is overzealous: Some users have commented that their personal records are being deleted without any sort of prompt or ability to dispute the AI's findings. If you're a serious athlete, seeing your genuinely impressive times being questioned by an automated system that might not account for peak human performance is naturally going to rankle.Outside of leaderboard integrity, Strava's AI initiatives are generally overzealous and inaccurate. I'm not alone in noticing how absurd its new route generation can get. I'm talking routes with concentric loops, cutting through buildings, major roads instead of residential paths, and other issues that will make no sense to a real human moving through the world. Given the immense heat map data that we've all effectively donated to Strava, to be given such shoddy AI-generated routes is fairly bonkers, and it's hardly surprising that its cheat-detecting tools would also be less than precise.The bottom lineControversy aside, Strava's competitive features should be more about personal motivation than serious competition. If cheater detection is ruining your experience, I recommend some perspective. Try not to let it spoil what should be a fun, social fitness experience—especially given the AI tools don't (yet) seem accurate enough to reflect reality.But with 4.45 million activities already in the digital trash bin, Strava's message is clear: The days of easily gaming the leaderboards are over. Of course, as fitness tracking technology continues to evolve, so too will the methods people use to fool the system. Hopefully Strava stays one step ahead of creative rule-benders.

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2025-05-31 23:26:32 ·

IGN: Activision Quietly Force Adverts into Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Loadouts and Players Absolutely Hate It

Xando
Member

Oct 28, 2017

38,006

With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process.

Activision already has a bad reputation for the aggressive monetization of the premium Black Ops 6 and its free-to-play battle royale Warzone, but this latest move may have tipped some players over the edge.

Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts.

Elsewhere, Activision has added bundle and Battle Pass advertisements to the Events tab, another controversial change that has caused complaints.

Here's a snippet of the response, sourced from across Call of Duty subreddits, Discords, and social media:

I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in Warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting? F**k off.
This game is still 80€ I get that they make most of their money from the store, but I feel like the bare minimum for a premium product would be to not have ads clogging the menus right?
At this point it really feels like opening up a mobile game with how much more you see an option to buy anything in this game.
Anyone who wanted this bundle would've checked the store and bought it. Putting it here isn't gonna make more people buy it, its justannoying.
Just wait until they add pop up ads for bundles while you are playing the game.

Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

More including some examples here:

Activision Quietly Force Adverts into Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Loadouts and Players Absolutely Hate It: 'At This Point It Really Feels Like Opening Up a Mobile Game' - IGN

With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process.

www.ign.com

Gaspode
Member

Jan 17, 2025

152

gross

MarcosBrXD
Member

Aug 28, 2024

1,779

Crazy one of the biggest IPs doing this

Wallace
Member

Oct 25, 2017

28,182

Midwest

What a shit franchise.

Shirkelton
Member

Aug 20, 2020

6,976

Fuck that.

MinerArcaniner
Uncle Works at Nintendo
Member

Oct 29, 2017

7,473

The revenue line has to keep going up. There's no such thing as "enough" with corporations.

Kinthey
Avenger

Oct 27, 2017

25,551

Poor Cod really needs the money to keep the lights on

skullmuffins
Member

Oct 25, 2017

7,615

oh, ads for in-game microtransactions. guess i'm not surprised. that's where all the money is these days.

Remark
Member

Oct 27, 2017

4,184

Yeah the ads are so bad this season.

When you boot up the game in CoD HQ, theres a big ass button for Blackcell and BO6 and WZ are all the way on the right side of the menu. It's so annoying. Huge disrespect to the people who actually bought the game.

I wish CoD HQ would go away, it doesn't even actually help with anything and actually hampers the UX experience in a lot of ways especially on PC.

Last edited: Today at 10:14 AM

LiquidDom
Avenger

Oct 27, 2017

2,730

Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game?

I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though.

Richietto
One Winged Slayer
Member

Oct 25, 2017

26,147

North Carolina

Lmao what a joke

Loxley
Prophet of Truth
Member

Oct 25, 2017

10,702

We're inching closer and closer to this scene from Ready Player One.

"We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures"

View:

Fabs
Member

Aug 22, 2019

2,780

This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless.

Noisepurge
Corrupted by Vengeance
Member

Oct 25, 2017

9,775

Fabs said:

This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless.

Click to expand...
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Fortnite doesn't cost 80$

OP

OP

Xando
Member

Oct 28, 2017

38,006

LiquidDom said:

Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game?

I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though.
Click to expand...
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Considering half of the in-game purchases are basically ads for some brands or characters that have nothing to do with COD it's basically the same thing

Remark
Member

Oct 27, 2017

4,184

Noisepurge said:

Fortnite doesn't cost 80$

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To be fair, Warzone is F2P but that shit should be in there. Whether you buy the game or not, you have to go through CoD HQ which is so annoying.

Doskoi Panda
One Winged Slayer
Member

Oct 27, 2017

17,314

CoD is so fucking trashy lmao. I will never understand how it remains so popular. It just gets worse year over yesr, even Warzone.

SunBroDave
"This guy are sick"
Member

Oct 25, 2017

15,148

How else is COD supposed to make money

Decarb
Member

Oct 27, 2017

9,264

Fabs said:

This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless.

Click to expand...
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Not only is it in a full priced mode, but its also in the weapon customization menu where you least expect it.

Agni Kai
Member

Nov 2, 2017

10,037

Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line.

jroc74
Member

Oct 27, 2017

34,177

Yeah I dont think it needs to be this aggressive.

LiquidDom said:

Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game?

I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though.
Click to expand...
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Fabs said:

This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless.

Click to expand...
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While trying to play the game tho?

"Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts."

Imagine getting hit with Shark Card ads while browsing the in game stores in GTA Online....please Rockstar dont do this.

Noisepurge said:

Fortnite doesn't cost 80$

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Also this.

BradleyLove
Member

Oct 29, 2017

1,661

Doesn't surprise me. I bought Forza Horizon for PS5 a few days ago and was shocked to encounter unskippable ads for DLC. The American obsession with forcing ads everywhere they can is horrible.

This reply was brought to you by NEW Mountain Dew—new look, same bold refreshing flavour.

TransEuropaExpress
Member

Dec 6, 2017

11,420

US

They should go all in and start doing random 5-minute commercial breaks in the middle of rounds.

Pyro
God help us the mods are making weekend threads
Member

Jul 30, 2018

18,922

United States

Really fucking gross.

Vourlis
Member

Aug 14, 2022

5,911

United States

I...where are the ads?

edit: Oh like advertising the bundles or whatever. Okay.

jroc74
Member

Oct 27, 2017

34,177

BradleyLove said:

Doesn't surprise me. I bought Forza Horizon for PS5 a few days ago and was shocked to encounter unskippable ads for DLC. The American obsession with forcing ads everywhere they can is horrible.

This reply was brought to you by NEW Mountain Dew—new look, same bold refreshing flavour.
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I either forgot how it was or just didnt know, because I played it on XSX when it launched.

But I was and am shocked at the mtx in FH5.

shadowman16
Member

Oct 25, 2017

41,804

I feel like this has already become too normalised because I honestly assumed we were talking about unrelated product ads... Meanwhile the examples above... honestly I kinda expected.

Granted the article also points it out perfectly that if it were just in Warzoneit'd be... less bad, but charging however much for COD THEN pushing those ads on you... you just know people will crack.
Not the worst example of ads in games though, I still give that to SFVI's Turtles costumes, aside the cost, having that damn song playing constantly in the battle hub for monthon end drove me nuts at the time.

Papaya
The Fallen

Oct 25, 2017

2,735

California

The financial model for CoD is awful and lacks any sort of creativity. They just copied fortnite even though it doesn't work for a military shooter. They rarely release any good content because it either doesn't match the game's tone, or it sucks. It just doesn't lend itself well to skins, and other visual customization options. Or maybe they just don't know how to make good. Either way, I've never seen a more boring battlepass in my life.

CoD can be a super fun action game, but it's never felt more hollow and lifeless. The best counter-example to "games are art" I've ever seen.

BestBrand
Member

Mar 5, 2025

457

Call of duty is the worst man. I may not even buy another COD again.

MerluzaSamus
Member

Dec 3, 2018

1,471

Argentina

Agni Kai said:

Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line.

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The game published by EA to gather obscene money on the fps market? That one Battlefield?

Jokes aside, 'fraid this is going to be the norm long term, Fortnite normalized it and publishers with less restraint are going wild, same with AI. At least on the AAA market.

Lumination
Member

Oct 26, 2017

16,064

Who could have expected them giving the game away would have affected the revenue stream and business model of the game itself.

Geeko
Member

Oct 27, 2017

1,413

San Jose, CA

Lame as hell. The problem is that the masses won't care about it and will still spend crap tons of money on this game thus continuing this constant bombardment of ads.

shadowman16
Member

Oct 25, 2017

41,804

Agni Kai said:

Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line.

Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Gameplay wise, Hopefully Dice will take the time and make something truly special.

However... I wouldnt expect much better from EA of all publishers. They are every bit as summy...

OP

OP

Xando
Member

Oct 28, 2017

38,006

My guess is this is only going to get worse as MS tries to make up the lost revenue from people playing via GP instead of buying

SP.
Member

Oct 27, 2017

8,578

I guess I thought it would be worse than the reaction seems to suggest…

They're in-game micro transaction ads and for the most are for weapon skins which naturally don't seem that out of place in a weapon selection menu. It's not like they're advertising a Burger King Whopper in here. Obviously it'd be better if they weren't there at all but honestly if I played the game and saw these I wouldn't think it's anything out of the ordinary.

Ravelle
Member

Oct 31, 2017

20,432

Noisepurge said:

Fortnite doesn't cost 80$

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It doesn't spam you with multiple windows to buy something either

Rosebud
Two Pieces
Member

Apr 16, 2018

51,386

Wallace said:

What a shit franchise.

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.

Kyokanto
Member

Mar 4, 2025

493

For a second I thought this was going to be McDonald's ads or something lol. I wonder how far off that is…

Still scummy as is.

Pop-O-Matic
Avenger

Oct 25, 2017

14,007

MarcosBrXD said:

Crazy one of the biggest IPs doing this

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Not really. CoD might move more money than most of the rest of the industry put together, but capitalismdemands that the line must always be going up, and there isn't really much CoD can do to grow the player base in any significant way in the short-to-medium term, so they're going to start trying out shit like this to get even more money out of the existing players so the line goes up and the shareholders can be happy.

Fabs
Member

Aug 22, 2019

2,780

Noisepurge said:

Fortnite doesn't cost 80$

Click to expand...
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Decarb said:

Not only is it in a full priced mode, but its also in the weapon customization menu where you least expect it.

Click to expand...
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jroc74 said:

Yeah I dont think it needs to be this aggressive.

While trying to play the game tho?

"Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts."

Imagine getting hit with Shark Card ads while browsing the in game stores in GTA Online....please Rockstar dont do this.

Also this.
Click to expand...
Click to shrink...

Full priced games advertise their dlc in menus all the time. Is it because it's in a new place? Is this that different than having the paid operators in the menu for selection like they have in past CoD? Or when I play Street Fighter and I can't pick Akuma because he costs money? I get it if it was for McDonalds but this seems like rage bait.

Plexas
Member

Jan 24, 2025

289

Several trillion dollar company needs some money to survive, please understand.

Twister
Member

Feb 11, 2019

6,692

This franchise peaked with BO3. Everything after has been a disaster

Vertigo1
Member

Jun 30, 2023

1,093

CoD will never be as good as it was in the 360 era, ever again.

Sordid Plebeian
Member

Oct 26, 2017

19,955

Yeah I remember seeing that AI store slop when I booted up S4, and they wonder why they're driving players away

Tommy Showbiz
Member

Jul 20, 2022

3,727

This is pretty corny, but I was honestly expecting ads for like Dr. Squatch and not just prodding you to buy in-game bundles.

Apathy
Member

Oct 25, 2017

13,538

So the biggest game, created by the biggest publisher, paced by the riches company in the world needs to slide ads into their paid games. Lovely

DarkJ
Member

Nov 11, 2017

1,918

Ai slop? Ads in the menus? In a fully priced game?

Really just making sure I don't even look at the next game.

T88heon
Member

Aug 26, 2024

1,042

This is a profitability issue coupled with horrendous stewardship of the ip.

If the retail side was profitable would they need to stealthily run ads in "COD" of all ip?

DSync
Member

Oct 27, 2017

884

Black Ops 6 in 2025 after the most recent update for Season 4

> £70 for the base game
> £100 for the "Vault Editon"
> £50/60 for a year of PS Plus to play the game online
> £10 for the Battlepass
> £15 for the Battlepass plus tier skips
> £25 for the "Blackcell" Battlepass
> Free and PremiumBattlepasses for the Seth Rogan Operator Weed event
> £16-25 Weapon and Operator bundles
> AI art in the emblems, calling cards, posters in certain levels
> Ads for bundles in creating a Loadout
> Server instability issues
> Whole game crashes to desktop/homescreen when editing your loadout during a match
> UI Menu lagging
> Cheaters, hackers run rampant
> Store will 100% work no matter what

Pai Pai Master
Member

Oct 25, 2017

37,298

Atlanta GA

AI crap and ads, yet people will still buy this shit in record numbers every year

#ign #activision #quietly #force #adverts

IGN: Activision Quietly Force Adverts into Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Loadouts and Players Absolutely Hate It
Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 38,006 With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process. Activision already has a bad reputation for the aggressive monetization of the premium Black Ops 6 and its free-to-play battle royale Warzone, but this latest move may have tipped some players over the edge. Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts. Elsewhere, Activision has added bundle and Battle Pass advertisements to the Events tab, another controversial change that has caused complaints. Here's a snippet of the response, sourced from across Call of Duty subreddits, Discords, and social media: I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in Warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting? F**k off. This game is still 80€ I get that they make most of their money from the store, but I feel like the bare minimum for a premium product would be to not have ads clogging the menus right? At this point it really feels like opening up a mobile game with how much more you see an option to buy anything in this game. Anyone who wanted this bundle would've checked the store and bought it. Putting it here isn't gonna make more people buy it, its justannoying. Just wait until they add pop up ads for bundles while you are playing the game. Click to expand... Click to shrink... More including some examples here: Activision Quietly Force Adverts into Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Loadouts and Players Absolutely Hate It: 'At This Point It Really Feels Like Opening Up a Mobile Game' - IGN With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process. www.ign.com Gaspode Member Jan 17, 2025 152 gross MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,779 Crazy one of the biggest IPs doing this Wallace Member Oct 25, 2017 28,182 Midwest What a shit franchise. Shirkelton Member Aug 20, 2020 6,976 Fuck that. MinerArcaniner Uncle Works at Nintendo Member Oct 29, 2017 7,473 The revenue line has to keep going up. There's no such thing as "enough" with corporations. Kinthey Avenger Oct 27, 2017 25,551 Poor Cod really needs the money to keep the lights on skullmuffins Member Oct 25, 2017 7,615 oh, ads for in-game microtransactions. guess i'm not surprised. that's where all the money is these days. Remark Member Oct 27, 2017 4,184 Yeah the ads are so bad this season. When you boot up the game in CoD HQ, theres a big ass button for Blackcell and BO6 and WZ are all the way on the right side of the menu. It's so annoying. Huge disrespect to the people who actually bought the game. I wish CoD HQ would go away, it doesn't even actually help with anything and actually hampers the UX experience in a lot of ways especially on PC. Last edited: Today at 10:14 AM LiquidDom Avenger Oct 27, 2017 2,730 Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game? I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though. Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 26,147 North Carolina Lmao what a joke Loxley Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 10,702 We're inching closer and closer to this scene from Ready Player One. "We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures" View: Fabs Member Aug 22, 2019 2,780 This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Noisepurge Corrupted by Vengeance Member Oct 25, 2017 9,775 Fabs said: This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 38,006 LiquidDom said: Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game? I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Considering half of the in-game purchases are basically ads for some brands or characters that have nothing to do with COD it's basically the same thing Remark Member Oct 27, 2017 4,184 Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... To be fair, Warzone is F2P but that shit should be in there. Whether you buy the game or not, you have to go through CoD HQ which is so annoying. Doskoi Panda One Winged Slayer Member Oct 27, 2017 17,314 CoD is so fucking trashy lmao. I will never understand how it remains so popular. It just gets worse year over yesr, even Warzone. SunBroDave "This guy are sick" Member Oct 25, 2017 15,148 How else is COD supposed to make money Decarb Member Oct 27, 2017 9,264 Fabs said: This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not only is it in a full priced mode, but its also in the weapon customization menu where you least expect it. Agni Kai Member Nov 2, 2017 10,037 Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line. jroc74 Member Oct 27, 2017 34,177 Yeah I dont think it needs to be this aggressive. LiquidDom said: Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game? I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Fabs said: This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Click to expand... Click to shrink... While trying to play the game tho? "Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts." Imagine getting hit with Shark Card ads while browsing the in game stores in GTA Online....please Rockstar dont do this. Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... Also this. BradleyLove Member Oct 29, 2017 1,661 Doesn't surprise me. I bought Forza Horizon for PS5 a few days ago and was shocked to encounter unskippable ads for DLC. The American obsession with forcing ads everywhere they can is horrible. This reply was brought to you by NEW Mountain Dew—new look, same bold refreshing flavour. TransEuropaExpress Member Dec 6, 2017 11,420 US They should go all in and start doing random 5-minute commercial breaks in the middle of rounds. Pyro God help us the mods are making weekend threads Member Jul 30, 2018 18,922 United States Really fucking gross. Vourlis Member Aug 14, 2022 5,911 United States I...where are the ads? edit: Oh like advertising the bundles or whatever. Okay. jroc74 Member Oct 27, 2017 34,177 BradleyLove said: Doesn't surprise me. I bought Forza Horizon for PS5 a few days ago and was shocked to encounter unskippable ads for DLC. The American obsession with forcing ads everywhere they can is horrible. This reply was brought to you by NEW Mountain Dew—new look, same bold refreshing flavour. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I either forgot how it was or just didnt know, because I played it on XSX when it launched. But I was and am shocked at the mtx in FH5. shadowman16 Member Oct 25, 2017 41,804 I feel like this has already become too normalised because I honestly assumed we were talking about unrelated product ads... Meanwhile the examples above... honestly I kinda expected. Granted the article also points it out perfectly that if it were just in Warzoneit'd be... less bad, but charging however much for COD THEN pushing those ads on you... you just know people will crack. Not the worst example of ads in games though, I still give that to SFVI's Turtles costumes, aside the cost, having that damn song playing constantly in the battle hub for monthon end drove me nuts at the time. Papaya The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 2,735 California The financial model for CoD is awful and lacks any sort of creativity. They just copied fortnite even though it doesn't work for a military shooter. They rarely release any good content because it either doesn't match the game's tone, or it sucks. It just doesn't lend itself well to skins, and other visual customization options. Or maybe they just don't know how to make good. Either way, I've never seen a more boring battlepass in my life. CoD can be a super fun action game, but it's never felt more hollow and lifeless. The best counter-example to "games are art" I've ever seen. BestBrand Member Mar 5, 2025 457 Call of duty is the worst man. I may not even buy another COD again. MerluzaSamus Member Dec 3, 2018 1,471 Argentina Agni Kai said: Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The game published by EA to gather obscene money on the fps market? That one Battlefield? Jokes aside, 'fraid this is going to be the norm long term, Fortnite normalized it and publishers with less restraint are going wild, same with AI. At least on the AAA market. Lumination Member Oct 26, 2017 16,064 Who could have expected them giving the game away would have affected the revenue stream and business model of the game itself. Geeko Member Oct 27, 2017 1,413 San Jose, CA Lame as hell. The problem is that the masses won't care about it and will still spend crap tons of money on this game thus continuing this constant bombardment of ads. shadowman16 Member Oct 25, 2017 41,804 Agni Kai said: Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Gameplay wise, Hopefully Dice will take the time and make something truly special. However... I wouldnt expect much better from EA of all publishers. They are every bit as summy... OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 38,006 My guess is this is only going to get worse as MS tries to make up the lost revenue from people playing via GP instead of buying SP. Member Oct 27, 2017 8,578 I guess I thought it would be worse than the reaction seems to suggest… They're in-game micro transaction ads and for the most are for weapon skins which naturally don't seem that out of place in a weapon selection menu. It's not like they're advertising a Burger King Whopper in here. Obviously it'd be better if they weren't there at all but honestly if I played the game and saw these I wouldn't think it's anything out of the ordinary. Ravelle Member Oct 31, 2017 20,432 Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... It doesn't spam you with multiple windows to buy something either Rosebud Two Pieces Member Apr 16, 2018 51,386 Wallace said: What a shit franchise. Click to expand... Click to shrink... . Kyokanto Member Mar 4, 2025 493 For a second I thought this was going to be McDonald's ads or something lol. I wonder how far off that is… Still scummy as is. Pop-O-Matic Avenger Oct 25, 2017 14,007 MarcosBrXD said: Crazy one of the biggest IPs doing this Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not really. CoD might move more money than most of the rest of the industry put together, but capitalismdemands that the line must always be going up, and there isn't really much CoD can do to grow the player base in any significant way in the short-to-medium term, so they're going to start trying out shit like this to get even more money out of the existing players so the line goes up and the shareholders can be happy. Fabs Member Aug 22, 2019 2,780 Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... Decarb said: Not only is it in a full priced mode, but its also in the weapon customization menu where you least expect it. Click to expand... Click to shrink... jroc74 said: Yeah I dont think it needs to be this aggressive. While trying to play the game tho? "Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts." Imagine getting hit with Shark Card ads while browsing the in game stores in GTA Online....please Rockstar dont do this. Also this. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Full priced games advertise their dlc in menus all the time. Is it because it's in a new place? Is this that different than having the paid operators in the menu for selection like they have in past CoD? Or when I play Street Fighter and I can't pick Akuma because he costs money? I get it if it was for McDonalds but this seems like rage bait. Plexas Member Jan 24, 2025 289 Several trillion dollar company needs some money to survive, please understand. Twister Member Feb 11, 2019 6,692 This franchise peaked with BO3. Everything after has been a disaster Vertigo1 Member Jun 30, 2023 1,093 CoD will never be as good as it was in the 360 era, ever again. Sordid Plebeian Member Oct 26, 2017 19,955 Yeah I remember seeing that AI store slop when I booted up S4, and they wonder why they're driving players away Tommy Showbiz Member Jul 20, 2022 3,727 This is pretty corny, but I was honestly expecting ads for like Dr. Squatch and not just prodding you to buy in-game bundles. Apathy Member Oct 25, 2017 13,538 So the biggest game, created by the biggest publisher, paced by the riches company in the world needs to slide ads into their paid games. Lovely DarkJ Member Nov 11, 2017 1,918 Ai slop? Ads in the menus? In a fully priced game? Really just making sure I don't even look at the next game. T88heon Member Aug 26, 2024 1,042 This is a profitability issue coupled with horrendous stewardship of the ip. If the retail side was profitable would they need to stealthily run ads in "COD" of all ip? 😬 DSync Member Oct 27, 2017 884 Black Ops 6 in 2025 after the most recent update for Season 4 > £70 for the base game > £100 for the "Vault Editon" > £50/60 for a year of PS Plus to play the game online > £10 for the Battlepass > £15 for the Battlepass plus tier skips > £25 for the "Blackcell" Battlepass > Free and PremiumBattlepasses for the Seth Rogan Operator Weed event > £16-25 Weapon and Operator bundles > AI art in the emblems, calling cards, posters in certain levels > Ads for bundles in creating a Loadout > Server instability issues > Whole game crashes to desktop/homescreen when editing your loadout during a match > UI Menu lagging > Cheaters, hackers run rampant > Store will 100% work no matter what Pai Pai Master Member Oct 25, 2017 37,298 Atlanta GA AI crap and ads, yet people will still buy this shit in record numbers every year #ign #activision #quietly #force #adverts

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IGN: Activision Quietly Force Adverts into Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Loadouts and Players Absolutely Hate It

Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 38,006 With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process. Activision already has a bad reputation for the aggressive monetization of the premium Black Ops 6 and its free-to-play battle royale Warzone, but this latest move may have tipped some players over the edge. Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts. Elsewhere, Activision has added bundle and Battle Pass advertisements to the Events tab, another controversial change that has caused complaints. Here's a snippet of the response, sourced from across Call of Duty subreddits, Discords, and social media: I wouldn't even be mad if this was just in Warzone, a free game, but putting it in a pay-to-play premium title, with how expensive they're getting? F**k off. This game is still 80€ I get that they make most of their money from the store, but I feel like the bare minimum for a premium product would be to not have ads clogging the menus right? At this point it really feels like opening up a mobile game with how much more you see an option to buy anything in this game. Anyone who wanted this bundle would've checked the store and bought it. Putting it here isn't gonna make more people buy it, its justannoying. Just wait until they add pop up ads for bundles while you are playing the game. Click to expand... Click to shrink... More including some examples here: Activision Quietly Force Adverts into Call of Duty Black Ops 6 and Warzone Loadouts and Players Absolutely Hate It: 'At This Point It Really Feels Like Opening Up a Mobile Game' - IGN With the launch of Call of Duty Season 4, Activision quietly put adverts inside loadouts for Black Ops 6 and Warzone, sparking a backlash in the process. www.ign.com Gaspode Member Jan 17, 2025 152 gross MarcosBrXD Member Aug 28, 2024 1,779 Crazy one of the biggest IPs doing this Wallace Member Oct 25, 2017 28,182 Midwest What a shit franchise. Shirkelton Member Aug 20, 2020 6,976 Fuck that. MinerArcaniner Uncle Works at Nintendo Member Oct 29, 2017 7,473 The revenue line has to keep going up. There's no such thing as "enough" with corporations. Kinthey Avenger Oct 27, 2017 25,551 Poor Cod really needs the money to keep the lights on skullmuffins Member Oct 25, 2017 7,615 oh, ads for in-game microtransactions. guess i'm not surprised. that's where all the money is these days. Remark Member Oct 27, 2017 4,184 Yeah the ads are so bad this season. When you boot up the game in CoD HQ, theres a big ass button for Blackcell and BO6 and WZ are all the way on the right side of the menu. It's so annoying. Huge disrespect to the people who actually bought the game. I wish CoD HQ would go away, it doesn't even actually help with anything and actually hampers the UX experience in a lot of ways especially on PC. Last edited: Today at 10:14 AM LiquidDom Avenger Oct 27, 2017 2,730 Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game? I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though. Richietto One Winged Slayer Member Oct 25, 2017 26,147 North Carolina Lmao what a joke Loxley Prophet of Truth Member Oct 25, 2017 10,702 We're inching closer and closer to this scene from Ready Player One. "We estimate we can sell up to 80% of an individual's visual field before inducing seizures" View: https://youtu.be/KpPE85Jogjw?si=Di0mlmiF27KidwWs Fabs Member Aug 22, 2019 2,780 This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Noisepurge Corrupted by Vengeance Member Oct 25, 2017 9,775 Fabs said: This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 38,006 LiquidDom said: Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game? I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Considering half of the in-game purchases are basically ads for some brands or characters that have nothing to do with COD it's basically the same thing Remark Member Oct 27, 2017 4,184 Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... To be fair, Warzone is F2P but that shit should be in there. Whether you buy the game or not, you have to go through CoD HQ which is so annoying. Doskoi Panda One Winged Slayer Member Oct 27, 2017 17,314 CoD is so fucking trashy lmao. I will never understand how it remains so popular. It just gets worse year over yesr, even Warzone. SunBroDave "This guy are sick" Member Oct 25, 2017 15,148 How else is COD supposed to make money Decarb Member Oct 27, 2017 9,264 Fabs said: This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not only is it in a full priced mode, but its also in the weapon customization menu where you least expect it. Agni Kai Member Nov 2, 2017 10,037 Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line. jroc74 Member Oct 27, 2017 34,177 Yeah I dont think it needs to be this aggressive. LiquidDom said: Wait it's just ads for the in-game purchases? Not outside ads that have nothing to do with the game? I don't have that much of an issue with it, still shit though. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Fabs said: This doesn't seem that different than like Fortnite advertising the shop updates in the main menu. It's fairly harmless. Click to expand... Click to shrink... While trying to play the game tho? "Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts." Imagine getting hit with Shark Card ads while browsing the in game stores in GTA Online....please Rockstar dont do this. Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... Also this. BradleyLove Member Oct 29, 2017 1,661 Doesn't surprise me. I bought Forza Horizon for PS5 a few days ago and was shocked to encounter unskippable ads for DLC. The American obsession with forcing ads everywhere they can is horrible. This reply was brought to you by NEW Mountain Dew—new look, same bold refreshing flavour. TransEuropaExpress Member Dec 6, 2017 11,420 US They should go all in and start doing random 5-minute commercial breaks in the middle of rounds. Pyro God help us the mods are making weekend threads Member Jul 30, 2018 18,922 United States Really fucking gross. Vourlis Member Aug 14, 2022 5,911 United States I...where are the ads? edit: Oh like advertising the bundles or whatever. Okay. jroc74 Member Oct 27, 2017 34,177 BradleyLove said: Doesn't surprise me. I bought Forza Horizon for PS5 a few days ago and was shocked to encounter unskippable ads for DLC. The American obsession with forcing ads everywhere they can is horrible. This reply was brought to you by NEW Mountain Dew—new look, same bold refreshing flavour. Click to expand... Click to shrink... I either forgot how it was or just didnt know, because I played it on XSX when it launched. But I was and am shocked at the mtx in FH5. shadowman16 Member Oct 25, 2017 41,804 I feel like this has already become too normalised because I honestly assumed we were talking about unrelated product ads... Meanwhile the examples above... honestly I kinda expected. Granted the article also points it out perfectly that if it were just in Warzone (free) it'd be... less bad, but charging however much for COD THEN pushing those ads on you... you just know people will crack. Not the worst example of ads in games though, I still give that to SFVI's Turtles costumes, aside the cost, having that damn song playing constantly in the battle hub for month(s) on end drove me nuts at the time. Papaya The Fallen Oct 25, 2017 2,735 California The financial model for CoD is awful and lacks any sort of creativity. They just copied fortnite even though it doesn't work for a military shooter. They rarely release any good content because it either doesn't match the game's tone, or it sucks. It just doesn't lend itself well to skins, and other visual customization options. Or maybe they just don't know how to make good. Either way, I've never seen a more boring battlepass in my life. CoD can be a super fun action game, but it's never felt more hollow and lifeless. The best counter-example to "games are art" I've ever seen. BestBrand Member Mar 5, 2025 457 Call of duty is the worst man. I may not even buy another COD again. MerluzaSamus Member Dec 3, 2018 1,471 Argentina Agni Kai said: Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line. Click to expand... Click to shrink... The game published by EA to gather obscene money on the fps market? That one Battlefield? Jokes aside, 'fraid this is going to be the norm long term, Fortnite normalized it and publishers with less restraint are going wild, same with AI. At least on the AAA market. Lumination Member Oct 26, 2017 16,064 Who could have expected them giving the game away would have affected the revenue stream and business model of the game itself. Geeko Member Oct 27, 2017 1,413 San Jose, CA Lame as hell. The problem is that the masses won't care about it and will still spend crap tons of money on this game thus continuing this constant bombardment of ads. shadowman16 Member Oct 25, 2017 41,804 Agni Kai said: Only Battlefield 6 can save us now. Hold the line, my friends. Hold the line. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Gameplay wise, Hopefully Dice will take the time and make something truly special. However... I wouldnt expect much better from EA of all publishers. They are every bit as summy... OP OP Xando Member Oct 28, 2017 38,006 My guess is this is only going to get worse as MS tries to make up the lost revenue from people playing via GP instead of buying SP. Member Oct 27, 2017 8,578 I guess I thought it would be worse than the reaction seems to suggest… They're in-game micro transaction ads and for the most are for weapon skins which naturally don't seem that out of place in a weapon selection menu. It's not like they're advertising a Burger King Whopper in here. Obviously it'd be better if they weren't there at all but honestly if I played the game and saw these I wouldn't think it's anything out of the ordinary. Ravelle Member Oct 31, 2017 20,432 Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... It doesn't spam you with multiple windows to buy something either Rosebud Two Pieces Member Apr 16, 2018 51,386 Wallace said: What a shit franchise. Click to expand... Click to shrink... . Kyokanto Member Mar 4, 2025 493 For a second I thought this was going to be McDonald's ads or something lol. I wonder how far off that is… Still scummy as is. Pop-O-Matic Avenger Oct 25, 2017 14,007 MarcosBrXD said: Crazy one of the biggest IPs doing this Click to expand... Click to shrink... Not really. CoD might move more money than most of the rest of the industry put together, but capitalism (especially at publicly traded mega corps like MS and ActiBlizz before them) demands that the line must always be going up, and there isn't really much CoD can do to grow the player base in any significant way in the short-to-medium term, so they're going to start trying out shit like this to get even more money out of the existing players so the line goes up and the shareholders can be happy. Fabs Member Aug 22, 2019 2,780 Noisepurge said: Fortnite doesn't cost 80$ Click to expand... Click to shrink... Decarb said: Not only is it in a full priced mode, but its also in the weapon customization menu where you least expect it. Click to expand... Click to shrink... jroc74 said: Yeah I dont think it needs to be this aggressive. While trying to play the game tho? "Following the launch of Season 4, adverts for weapon bundles can be seen in the build and weapon menus. These are unavoidable for players as they tinker with their loadouts." Imagine getting hit with Shark Card ads while browsing the in game stores in GTA Online....please Rockstar dont do this. Also this. Click to expand... Click to shrink... Full priced games advertise their dlc in menus all the time. Is it because it's in a new place? Is this that different than having the paid operators in the menu for selection like they have in past CoD? Or when I play Street Fighter and I can't pick Akuma because he costs money? I get it if it was for McDonalds but this seems like rage bait. Plexas Member Jan 24, 2025 289 Several trillion dollar company needs some money to survive, please understand. Twister Member Feb 11, 2019 6,692 This franchise peaked with BO3. Everything after has been a disaster Vertigo1 Member Jun 30, 2023 1,093 CoD will never be as good as it was in the 360 era, ever again. Sordid Plebeian Member Oct 26, 2017 19,955 Yeah I remember seeing that AI store slop when I booted up S4, and they wonder why they're driving players away Tommy Showbiz Member Jul 20, 2022 3,727 This is pretty corny, but I was honestly expecting ads for like Dr. Squatch and not just prodding you to buy in-game bundles. Apathy Member Oct 25, 2017 13,538 So the biggest game, created by the biggest publisher, paced by the riches company in the world needs to slide ads into their paid games. Lovely DarkJ Member Nov 11, 2017 1,918 Ai slop? Ads in the menus? In a fully priced game? Really just making sure I don't even look at the next game. T88heon Member Aug 26, 2024 1,042 This is a profitability issue coupled with horrendous stewardship of the ip. If the retail side was profitable would they need to stealthily run ads in "COD" of all ip? 😬 DSync Member Oct 27, 2017 884 Black Ops 6 in 2025 after the most recent update for Season 4 > £70 for the base game > £100 for the "Vault Editon" > £50/60 for a year of PS Plus to play the game online > £10 for the Battlepass > £15 for the Battlepass plus tier skips > £25 for the "Blackcell" Battlepass > Free and Premium (Costs money) Battlepasses for the Seth Rogan Operator Weed event > £16-25 Weapon and Operator bundles > AI art in the emblems, calling cards, posters in certain levels > Ads for bundles in creating a Loadout > Server instability issues > Whole game crashes to desktop/homescreen when editing your loadout during a match > UI Menu lagging > Cheaters, hackers run rampant > Store will 100% work no matter what (Prices for everything may not be exact) Pai Pai Master Member Oct 25, 2017 37,298 Atlanta GA AI crap and ads, yet people will still buy this shit in record numbers every year

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2025-05-31 13:10:52 ·

Kotaku’s Biggest Gaming Culture News For The Week May 31, 2025

Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: Nintendo / Kotaku / Jake Randall / Burndumb, Nintendo / Kotaku, Fox / Disney / Kotaku, Sandfall Interactive, Nintendo / Kotaku, Arrowhead Game Studios / Kotaku, Screenshot: Подкаст «Пóпы и культура» / YouTube / Switch 2, a2dubai / YouTube / KotakuFrom mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.Previous SlideNext SlideList slidesTarget Leaves Dozens Of Switch 2 Consoles Locked In A Cage On The Store FloorNintendo’s next big console, the Switch 2, is set to arrive on store shelves in just 10 days. So it’s not surprising to see photos showing dozens of Switch 2 consoles sitting in store warehouses and back areas. However, I wasn’t expecting a bunch of Switch 2 consoles to be sitting in a metal cage in the middle of a Target already. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSwitch 2 Leaker Explains How He Got The Console Early And Why He's Not Afraid Of NintendoImage: Nintendo / KotakuIt was the middle of the night when Fedor Volkov found himself anxiously waiting on the streets of Moscow for a ride back home. In his arms he held a Switch 2 box and nestled within was the console fans had been waiting years to get their hands on, but which still didn’t officially go on sale for more than a week. He was too nervous and excited to remember to bring something to hide it in. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSomeone Take Away Randy Pitchford's PhoneImage: Fox / Disney / KotakuSometimes you just gotta walk away. And this might be one of those times. Earlier this month, Gearbox co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford replied to someone on social media about the studio’s next game, Borderlands 4, possibly receiving an price tag. He said it wasn’t his call and then infamously added, “If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.” This didn’t go over well with people online. A few days later, on May 22, he said he didn’t intend to sound like an asshole. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSwitch 2 Startup And Menu Settings Appear Online As Early Player Shows Off Console In 'Code Red' Leak For NintendoScreenshot: Подкаст «Пóпы и культура» / YouTube / Switch 2The Switch 2 is just days away from its official June 5 launch, but already footage is beginning to spread online of people going hands-on with Nintendo’s next console. One fan based in Russia recently uploaded a nearly 10-minute video that includes the Switch 2's startup sequence and a tour through its menu settings. “Respects to this man for sacrificing his life to unbox the console a week before launch,” reads the top comment on YouTube. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesClair Obscur: Expedition 33 Publisher Says Fans Would Never Guess The Hit RPG's Budget: 'I'm Sure Mirror's Edge And Vanquish Cost More'Image: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the top-rated games of the year and has sold over 3.3 million copies. And it did it all with a very small budget, according to publisher Kelpler Interactive. How small? Portfolio director Matthew Handrahan isn’t saying, but he thinks everyone’s guesses are probably wrong. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesOnly One First-Party Nintendo Game Won't Work On Switch 2Image: Nintendo / KotakuThe Nintendo Switch 2 will be able to play most original Switch games without any issues when it launches on June 5. According to an update from Nintendo, most big games and all first-party titleswill work on Switch 2, though you might need an update or an old Joy-Con. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesHelldivers 2 Players Are Pulling Off Incredible Feats In A Last-Ditch Effort To Super EarthImage: Arrowhead Game Studios / KotakuHelldivers 2's Galactic War has come to Super Earth and it’s going very, very badly. Players have lost every major city on the planet save for two, but are making a triumphant last stand against the Illuminate as fans from across the real world band together to hold the line. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSomeone's Unboxing A Switch 2 But Claims It Needs A Day-One Patch To WorkScreenshot: a2dubai / YouTube / KotakuSwitch 2 hardware appears to be officially out in the wild, but it doesn’t sound like anyone will be able to play the console early. A day-one patch is needed for it to fully work, according to someone who uploaded a brief unboxing video of the new Nintendo console to YouTube. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores CloseGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores Close

Share SubtitlesOffEnglishThe company continues its pivot away from selling games and toward doing anything else to stay afloatPrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesPlayStation’s Days of Play Brings Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, NBA 2K25 & More To PS PlusPlayStation’s Days of Play Brings Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, NBA 2K25 & More To PS Plus

Share SubtitlesOffEnglishBomb Rush Cyberfunk is hitting PS Plus alongside NBA 2K25 and a Destiny 2 takeover in June
#kotakus #biggest #gaming #culture #news

Kotaku’s Biggest Gaming Culture News For The Week May 31, 2025
Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: Nintendo / Kotaku / Jake Randall / Burndumb, Nintendo / Kotaku, Fox / Disney / Kotaku, Sandfall Interactive, Nintendo / Kotaku, Arrowhead Game Studios / Kotaku, Screenshot: Подкаст «Пóпы и культура» / YouTube / Switch 2, a2dubai / YouTube / KotakuFrom mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.Previous SlideNext SlideList slidesTarget Leaves Dozens Of Switch 2 Consoles Locked In A Cage On The Store FloorNintendo’s next big console, the Switch 2, is set to arrive on store shelves in just 10 days. So it’s not surprising to see photos showing dozens of Switch 2 consoles sitting in store warehouses and back areas. However, I wasn’t expecting a bunch of Switch 2 consoles to be sitting in a metal cage in the middle of a Target already. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSwitch 2 Leaker Explains How He Got The Console Early And Why He's Not Afraid Of NintendoImage: Nintendo / KotakuIt was the middle of the night when Fedor Volkov found himself anxiously waiting on the streets of Moscow for a ride back home. In his arms he held a Switch 2 box and nestled within was the console fans had been waiting years to get their hands on, but which still didn’t officially go on sale for more than a week. He was too nervous and excited to remember to bring something to hide it in. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSomeone Take Away Randy Pitchford's PhoneImage: Fox / Disney / KotakuSometimes you just gotta walk away. And this might be one of those times. Earlier this month, Gearbox co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford replied to someone on social media about the studio’s next game, Borderlands 4, possibly receiving an price tag. He said it wasn’t his call and then infamously added, “If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.” This didn’t go over well with people online. A few days later, on May 22, he said he didn’t intend to sound like an asshole. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSwitch 2 Startup And Menu Settings Appear Online As Early Player Shows Off Console In 'Code Red' Leak For NintendoScreenshot: Подкаст «Пóпы и культура» / YouTube / Switch 2The Switch 2 is just days away from its official June 5 launch, but already footage is beginning to spread online of people going hands-on with Nintendo’s next console. One fan based in Russia recently uploaded a nearly 10-minute video that includes the Switch 2's startup sequence and a tour through its menu settings. “Respects to this man for sacrificing his life to unbox the console a week before launch,” reads the top comment on YouTube. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesClair Obscur: Expedition 33 Publisher Says Fans Would Never Guess The Hit RPG's Budget: 'I'm Sure Mirror's Edge And Vanquish Cost More'Image: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the top-rated games of the year and has sold over 3.3 million copies. And it did it all with a very small budget, according to publisher Kelpler Interactive. How small? Portfolio director Matthew Handrahan isn’t saying, but he thinks everyone’s guesses are probably wrong. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesOnly One First-Party Nintendo Game Won't Work On Switch 2Image: Nintendo / KotakuThe Nintendo Switch 2 will be able to play most original Switch games without any issues when it launches on June 5. According to an update from Nintendo, most big games and all first-party titleswill work on Switch 2, though you might need an update or an old Joy-Con. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesHelldivers 2 Players Are Pulling Off Incredible Feats In A Last-Ditch Effort To Super EarthImage: Arrowhead Game Studios / KotakuHelldivers 2's Galactic War has come to Super Earth and it’s going very, very badly. Players have lost every major city on the planet save for two, but are making a triumphant last stand against the Illuminate as fans from across the real world band together to hold the line. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSomeone's Unboxing A Switch 2 But Claims It Needs A Day-One Patch To WorkScreenshot: a2dubai / YouTube / KotakuSwitch 2 hardware appears to be officially out in the wild, but it doesn’t sound like anyone will be able to play the console early. A day-one patch is needed for it to fully work, according to someone who uploaded a brief unboxing video of the new Nintendo console to YouTube. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores CloseGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores Close Share SubtitlesOffEnglishThe company continues its pivot away from selling games and toward doing anything else to stay afloatPrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesPlayStation’s Days of Play Brings Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, NBA 2K25 & More To PS PlusPlayStation’s Days of Play Brings Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, NBA 2K25 & More To PS Plus Share SubtitlesOffEnglishBomb Rush Cyberfunk is hitting PS Plus alongside NBA 2K25 and a Destiny 2 takeover in June #kotakus #biggest #gaming #culture #news

KOTAKU.COM

Kotaku’s Biggest Gaming Culture News For The Week May 31, 2025

Start SlideshowStart SlideshowImage: Nintendo / Kotaku / Jake Randall / Burndumb, Nintendo / Kotaku, Fox / Disney / Kotaku, Sandfall Interactive, Nintendo / Kotaku, Arrowhead Game Studios / Kotaku, Screenshot: Подкаст «Пóпы и культура» / YouTube / Switch 2, a2dubai / YouTube / KotakuFrom mergers to memes, the landscape of interactive entertainment is always in motion. Here’s your cheat sheet for the week’s most important stories in gaming.Previous SlideNext SlideList slidesTarget Leaves Dozens Of Switch 2 Consoles Locked In A Cage On The Store FloorNintendo’s next big console, the Switch 2, is set to arrive on store shelves in just 10 days. So it’s not surprising to see photos showing dozens of Switch 2 consoles sitting in store warehouses and back areas. However, I wasn’t expecting a bunch of Switch 2 consoles to be sitting in a metal cage in the middle of a Target already. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSwitch 2 Leaker Explains How He Got The Console Early And Why He's Not Afraid Of NintendoImage: Nintendo / KotakuIt was the middle of the night when Fedor Volkov found himself anxiously waiting on the streets of Moscow for a ride back home. In his arms he held a Switch 2 box and nestled within was the console fans had been waiting years to get their hands on, but which still didn’t officially go on sale for more than a week. He was too nervous and excited to remember to bring something to hide it in. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSomeone Take Away Randy Pitchford's PhoneImage: Fox / Disney / KotakuSometimes you just gotta walk away. And this might be one of those times. Earlier this month, Gearbox co-founder and CEO Randy Pitchford replied to someone on social media about the studio’s next game, Borderlands 4, possibly receiving an $80 price tag. He said it wasn’t his call and then infamously added, “If you’re a real fan, you’ll find a way to make it happen.” This didn’t go over well with people online. A few days later, on May 22, he said he didn’t intend to sound like an asshole. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSwitch 2 Startup And Menu Settings Appear Online As Early Player Shows Off Console In 'Code Red' Leak For NintendoScreenshot: Подкаст «Пóпы и культура» / YouTube / Switch 2The Switch 2 is just days away from its official June 5 launch, but already footage is beginning to spread online of people going hands-on with Nintendo’s next console. One fan based in Russia recently uploaded a nearly 10-minute video that includes the Switch 2's startup sequence and a tour through its menu settings. “Respects to this man for sacrificing his life to unbox the console a week before launch,” reads the top comment on YouTube. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesClair Obscur: Expedition 33 Publisher Says Fans Would Never Guess The Hit RPG's Budget: 'I'm Sure Mirror's Edge And Vanquish Cost More'Image: Sandfall InteractiveClair Obscur: Expedition 33 is one of the top-rated games of the year and has sold over 3.3 million copies. And it did it all with a very small budget, according to publisher Kelpler Interactive. How small? Portfolio director Matthew Handrahan isn’t saying, but he thinks everyone’s guesses are probably wrong. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesOnly One First-Party Nintendo Game Won't Work On Switch 2Image: Nintendo / KotakuThe Nintendo Switch 2 will be able to play most original Switch games without any issues when it launches on June 5. According to an update from Nintendo, most big games and all first-party titles (with one tiny exception) will work on Switch 2, though you might need an update or an old Joy-Con. - Zack Zwiezen Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesHelldivers 2 Players Are Pulling Off Incredible Feats In A Last-Ditch Effort To Save Super EarthImage: Arrowhead Game Studios / KotakuHelldivers 2's Galactic War has come to Super Earth and it’s going very, very badly. Players have lost every major city on the planet save for two, but are making a triumphant last stand against the Illuminate as fans from across the real world band together to hold the line. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesSomeone's Unboxing A Switch 2 But Claims It Needs A Day-One Patch To WorkScreenshot: a2dubai / YouTube / KotakuSwitch 2 hardware appears to be officially out in the wild, but it doesn’t sound like anyone will be able to play the console early. A day-one patch is needed for it to fully work, according to someone who uploaded a brief unboxing video of the new Nintendo console to YouTube. - Ethan Gach Read MorePrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores CloseGameStop Doubles Down On Crypto With Massive Bitcoin Purchase As Stores Close Share SubtitlesOffEnglishThe company continues its pivot away from selling games and toward doing anything else to stay afloatPrevious SlideNext SlideList slidesPlayStation’s Days of Play Brings Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, NBA 2K25 & More To PS PlusPlayStation’s Days of Play Brings Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, NBA 2K25 & More To PS Plus Share SubtitlesOffEnglishBomb Rush Cyberfunk is hitting PS Plus alongside NBA 2K25 and a Destiny 2 takeover in June

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TechCrunch een koppeling hebt gedeeld

2025-05-31 10:18:33 ·

TechCrunch Mobility: A ride-sharing pioneer comes for Uber, Tesla loses more ground, and dog-like delivery robots land in Texas

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility!
It might have been a short week, but there was still plenty of news, including another Zoox recall, an update on the Stellantis-Amazon partnership, and a few startup-funding deals.
One item of note: This week, I wrote about Carma Technology and its patent infringement lawsuit against Uber. This isn’t a patent troll situation, and the IP attorneys I have spoken with say it will be a challenging case for Uber.
The gist? Carma, which was formed in 2007 by serial entrepreneur and SOSV Ventures founder Sean O’Sullivan, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Uber, alleging the company infringed on five of its patents that are related to the system of matching riderswith capacity in vehicles. In other words, ride-sharing.
IP attorney Larry Ashery provided the money quote that explains why this is such a complicated and challenging case.
“What’s important to understand here is, Carma isn’t just asserting five patents. They have had a very sophisticated strategy of patent procurement that they’ve been working on for the past 18 years.”
Carma’s five patents are part of a 30-patent family that are all related and connected to the original filing date. That matters because each of the five asserted patents contains multiple patent claims, which define the legal boundaries of the invention. These individual claims — not just the patents as a whole — are what Carma is asserting against Uber.That means Uber will have to address and defend against each asserted claim, making the litigation more complex and difficult to defeat, Ashery noted.

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Let’s get into the rest of the news.
A little bird
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin
A few little birds have been chirping at us for months now about a new autonomous vehicle technology startup that has been quietly plugging along for a year. The interesting nugget about this startup — which is called Bedrock Robotics — is who is behind it: Boris Sofman, who led Waymo’s self-driving trucks program and previously co-founded and led the popular consumer robotics company Anki.
The San Francisco-based startup is still in stealth, but my sources tell me it has raised considerable venture funds. Bedrock Robotics is working on a self-driving kit that retrofits onto construction equipment and other heavy machinery, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com, or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop.
Deals!
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin
Firefly Aerospace received a million investment from Northrop Grumman as part of its Series D round. This investment will further advance production of the startup’s co-developed medium launch vehicle, now known as Eclipse.
Pallet, a warehouse logistics software startup based in Fremont, California, raised million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. Bain Capital Ventures, Activant Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated.
Volteras, a London-based startup building virtual connective tissue that will allow plugged-in EVs to offer their batteries to support the grid, closed an million Series A led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Edenred, Exor, Long Journey Ventures, and Wex.
Way Data Technologies, a fleet management startup founded by veterans of Lucid Motors and Wolt, raised €2.6 millionin pre-seed funding led by Pale Blue Dot, with participation from 10x Founders and Greens Ventures.
Notable reads and other tidbits
Image Credits:Bryce Durbin
Autonomous vehicles
Rivr’s four-wheeled, stair-climbing delivery robot — which its CEO and founder, Marko Bjelonic, describes as a dog on roller skates — will ferry packages from Veho vans directly to customers’ front doors as part of a pilot program in Austin, Texas. Both companies see this small pilot as a critical step toward solving a unique slice of the end-to-end autonomous delivery journey.
TuSimplesent a trove of sensitive data — effectively the blueprint of an American-made autonomous vehicle system — to a Beijing-owned firm after committing to the U.S. government that it would cease such transfers under a national security agreement. The revelation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, prompted numerous “not surprised” responses from several readers and sources within the industry.
Zoox issued its second voluntary software recall in a month, following a collision between one of its robotaxis and an e-scooter rider in San Francisco on May 8. The incident is notable, largely for what happened after the unoccupied Zoox vehicle operating at low speed was struck by the e-scooter after braking to yield at an intersection.
According to Zoox, the e-scooterist fell to the ground directly next to the vehicle and the “robotaxi began to move and stopped after completing the turn, but did not make further contact with the e-scooterist.”
In other Zoox news, the company announced it was the “official robotaxi partner of Resorts World Las Vegas.” As part of the deal, there will be a dedicated and Zoox-branded robotaxi pickup and drop-off location at Resorts World Las Vegas.
Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries
The Tesla Cybertruck is having a rough time. Dozens of unsold Tesla Cybertrucks are piling up at a Detroit shopping center parking lot. And while Cybertruck owners are now allowed by Tesla to trade in their vehicles for the first time since they hit the market, they’ll face a steep depreciation hit. CarGurus recently showed depreciation rates of up to 45%.
Meanwhile, Tesla sales in Europe and the U.K. have fallen by nearly half, according to data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association.
The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal of 2015 rippled through the automotive sector and prompted the companyto shift away from diesel and toward hybrids and electric vehicles. Now, four former Volkswagen executives have received prison sentences for their role.
In-car tech
Amazon is no longer working with Stellantis to create in-car software for the automaker’s vehicles. The partnership, first announced in January 2022, was part of Stellantis’ plan to generate billion annually from software. Stellantis told TechCrunch it would be pivoting to an Android-based system.
#techcrunch #mobility #ridesharing #pioneer #comes

TechCrunch Mobility: A ride-sharing pioneer comes for Uber, Tesla loses more ground, and dog-like delivery robots land in Texas
Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! It might have been a short week, but there was still plenty of news, including another Zoox recall, an update on the Stellantis-Amazon partnership, and a few startup-funding deals. One item of note: This week, I wrote about Carma Technology and its patent infringement lawsuit against Uber. This isn’t a patent troll situation, and the IP attorneys I have spoken with say it will be a challenging case for Uber. The gist? Carma, which was formed in 2007 by serial entrepreneur and SOSV Ventures founder Sean O’Sullivan, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Uber, alleging the company infringed on five of its patents that are related to the system of matching riderswith capacity in vehicles. In other words, ride-sharing. IP attorney Larry Ashery provided the money quote that explains why this is such a complicated and challenging case. “What’s important to understand here is, Carma isn’t just asserting five patents. They have had a very sophisticated strategy of patent procurement that they’ve been working on for the past 18 years.” Carma’s five patents are part of a 30-patent family that are all related and connected to the original filing date. That matters because each of the five asserted patents contains multiple patent claims, which define the legal boundaries of the invention. These individual claims — not just the patents as a whole — are what Carma is asserting against Uber.That means Uber will have to address and defend against each asserted claim, making the litigation more complex and difficult to defeat, Ashery noted. Techcrunch event now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Let’s get into the rest of the news. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin A few little birds have been chirping at us for months now about a new autonomous vehicle technology startup that has been quietly plugging along for a year. The interesting nugget about this startup — which is called Bedrock Robotics — is who is behind it: Boris Sofman, who led Waymo’s self-driving trucks program and previously co-founded and led the popular consumer robotics company Anki. The San Francisco-based startup is still in stealth, but my sources tell me it has raised considerable venture funds. Bedrock Robotics is working on a self-driving kit that retrofits onto construction equipment and other heavy machinery, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com, or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Firefly Aerospace received a million investment from Northrop Grumman as part of its Series D round. This investment will further advance production of the startup’s co-developed medium launch vehicle, now known as Eclipse. Pallet, a warehouse logistics software startup based in Fremont, California, raised million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. Bain Capital Ventures, Activant Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated. Volteras, a London-based startup building virtual connective tissue that will allow plugged-in EVs to offer their batteries to support the grid, closed an million Series A led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Edenred, Exor, Long Journey Ventures, and Wex. Way Data Technologies, a fleet management startup founded by veterans of Lucid Motors and Wolt, raised €2.6 millionin pre-seed funding led by Pale Blue Dot, with participation from 10x Founders and Greens Ventures. Notable reads and other tidbits Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Autonomous vehicles Rivr’s four-wheeled, stair-climbing delivery robot — which its CEO and founder, Marko Bjelonic, describes as a dog on roller skates — will ferry packages from Veho vans directly to customers’ front doors as part of a pilot program in Austin, Texas. Both companies see this small pilot as a critical step toward solving a unique slice of the end-to-end autonomous delivery journey.   TuSimplesent a trove of sensitive data — effectively the blueprint of an American-made autonomous vehicle system — to a Beijing-owned firm after committing to the U.S. government that it would cease such transfers under a national security agreement. The revelation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, prompted numerous “not surprised” responses from several readers and sources within the industry. Zoox issued its second voluntary software recall in a month, following a collision between one of its robotaxis and an e-scooter rider in San Francisco on May 8. The incident is notable, largely for what happened after the unoccupied Zoox vehicle operating at low speed was struck by the e-scooter after braking to yield at an intersection. According to Zoox, the e-scooterist fell to the ground directly next to the vehicle and the “robotaxi began to move and stopped after completing the turn, but did not make further contact with the e-scooterist.” In other Zoox news, the company announced it was the “official robotaxi partner of Resorts World Las Vegas.” As part of the deal, there will be a dedicated and Zoox-branded robotaxi pickup and drop-off location at Resorts World Las Vegas. Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries The Tesla Cybertruck is having a rough time. Dozens of unsold Tesla Cybertrucks are piling up at a Detroit shopping center parking lot. And while Cybertruck owners are now allowed by Tesla to trade in their vehicles for the first time since they hit the market, they’ll face a steep depreciation hit. CarGurus recently showed depreciation rates of up to 45%. Meanwhile, Tesla sales in Europe and the U.K. have fallen by nearly half, according to data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal of 2015 rippled through the automotive sector and prompted the companyto shift away from diesel and toward hybrids and electric vehicles. Now, four former Volkswagen executives have received prison sentences for their role. In-car tech Amazon is no longer working with Stellantis to create in-car software for the automaker’s vehicles. The partnership, first announced in January 2022, was part of Stellantis’ plan to generate billion annually from software. Stellantis told TechCrunch it would be pivoting to an Android-based system. #techcrunch #mobility #ridesharing #pioneer #comes

TECHCRUNCH.COM

TechCrunch Mobility: A ride-sharing pioneer comes for Uber, Tesla loses more ground, and dog-like delivery robots land in Texas

Welcome back to TechCrunch Mobility — your central hub for news and insights on the future of transportation. Sign up here for free — just click TechCrunch Mobility! It might have been a short week, but there was still plenty of news, including another Zoox recall, an update on the Stellantis-Amazon partnership, and a few startup-funding deals. One item of note: This week, I wrote about Carma Technology and its patent infringement lawsuit against Uber. This isn’t a patent troll situation, and the IP attorneys I have spoken with say it will be a challenging case for Uber. The gist? Carma, which was formed in 2007 by serial entrepreneur and SOSV Ventures founder Sean O’Sullivan, filed a lawsuit earlier this year against Uber, alleging the company infringed on five of its patents that are related to the system of matching riders (or packages) with capacity in vehicles. In other words, ride-sharing. IP attorney Larry Ashery provided the money quote that explains why this is such a complicated and challenging case. “What’s important to understand here is, Carma isn’t just asserting five patents. They have had a very sophisticated strategy of patent procurement that they’ve been working on for the past 18 years.” Carma’s five patents are part of a 30-patent family that are all related and connected to the original filing date. That matters because each of the five asserted patents contains multiple patent claims, which define the legal boundaries of the invention. These individual claims — not just the patents as a whole — are what Carma is asserting against Uber.That means Uber will have to address and defend against each asserted claim, making the litigation more complex and difficult to defeat, Ashery noted. Techcrunch event Save now through June 4 for TechCrunch Sessions: AI Save $300 on your ticket to TC Sessions: AI—and get 50% off a second. Hear from leaders at OpenAI, Anthropic, Khosla Ventures, and more during a full day of expert insights, hands-on workshops, and high-impact networking. These low-rate deals disappear when the doors open on June 5. Exhibit at TechCrunch Sessions: AI Secure your spot at TC Sessions: AI and show 1,200+ decision-makers what you’ve built — without the big spend. Available through May 9 or while tables last. Berkeley, CA | June 5 REGISTER NOW Let’s get into the rest of the news. A little bird Image Credits:Bryce Durbin A few little birds have been chirping at us for months now about a new autonomous vehicle technology startup that has been quietly plugging along for a year. The interesting nugget about this startup — which is called Bedrock Robotics — is who is behind it: Boris Sofman, who led Waymo’s self-driving trucks program and previously co-founded and led the popular consumer robotics company Anki. The San Francisco-based startup is still in stealth, but my sources tell me it has raised considerable venture funds. Bedrock Robotics is working on a self-driving kit that retrofits onto construction equipment and other heavy machinery, according to a filing with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Got a tip for us? Email Kirsten Korosec at kirsten.korosec@techcrunch.com or my Signal at kkorosec.07, Sean O’Kane at sean.okane@techcrunch.com, or Rebecca Bellan at rebecca.bellan@techcrunch.com. Or check out these instructions to learn how to contact us via encrypted messaging apps or SecureDrop. Deals! Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Firefly Aerospace received a $50 million investment from Northrop Grumman as part of its Series D round. This investment will further advance production of the startup’s co-developed medium launch vehicle, now known as Eclipse. Pallet, a warehouse logistics software startup based in Fremont, California, raised $27 million in a Series B funding round led by General Catalyst. Bain Capital Ventures, Activant Capital, and Bessemer Venture Partners also participated. Volteras, a London-based startup building virtual connective tissue that will allow plugged-in EVs to offer their batteries to support the grid, closed an $11.1 million Series A led by Union Square Ventures, with participation from Edenred, Exor, Long Journey Ventures, and Wex. Way Data Technologies, a fleet management startup founded by veterans of Lucid Motors and Wolt, raised €2.6 million ($2.95 million) in pre-seed funding led by Pale Blue Dot, with participation from 10x Founders and Greens Ventures. Notable reads and other tidbits Image Credits:Bryce Durbin Autonomous vehicles Rivr’s four-wheeled, stair-climbing delivery robot — which its CEO and founder, Marko Bjelonic, describes as a dog on roller skates — will ferry packages from Veho vans directly to customers’ front doors as part of a pilot program in Austin, Texas. Both companies see this small pilot as a critical step toward solving a unique slice of the end-to-end autonomous delivery journey.   TuSimple (now CreateAI) sent a trove of sensitive data — effectively the blueprint of an American-made autonomous vehicle system — to a Beijing-owned firm after committing to the U.S. government that it would cease such transfers under a national security agreement. The revelation, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, prompted numerous “not surprised” responses from several readers and sources within the industry. Zoox issued its second voluntary software recall in a month, following a collision between one of its robotaxis and an e-scooter rider in San Francisco on May 8. The incident is notable, largely for what happened after the unoccupied Zoox vehicle operating at low speed was struck by the e-scooter after braking to yield at an intersection. According to Zoox, the e-scooterist fell to the ground directly next to the vehicle and the “robotaxi began to move and stopped after completing the turn, but did not make further contact with the e-scooterist.” In other Zoox news, the company announced it was the “official robotaxi partner of Resorts World Las Vegas.” As part of the deal, there will be a dedicated and Zoox-branded robotaxi pickup and drop-off location at Resorts World Las Vegas. Electric vehicles, charging, & batteries The Tesla Cybertruck is having a rough time. Dozens of unsold Tesla Cybertrucks are piling up at a Detroit shopping center parking lot. And while Cybertruck owners are now allowed by Tesla to trade in their vehicles for the first time since they hit the market, they’ll face a steep depreciation hit. CarGurus recently showed depreciation rates of up to 45%. Meanwhile, Tesla sales in Europe and the U.K. have fallen by nearly half, according to data released by the European Automobile Manufacturers Association. The Volkswagen emissions cheating scandal of 2015 rippled through the automotive sector and prompted the company (and later followed by others) to shift away from diesel and toward hybrids and electric vehicles. Now, four former Volkswagen executives have received prison sentences for their role. In-car tech Amazon is no longer working with Stellantis to create in-car software for the automaker’s vehicles. The partnership, first announced in January 2022, was part of Stellantis’ plan to generate $22.5 billion annually from software. Stellantis told TechCrunch it would be pivoting to an Android-based system.

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fxguide | fxphd een koppeling hebt gedeeld

2025-05-31 09:33:11 ·

fxpodcast: Chefs of data – Etoile and machine learning

On this episode of the fxpodcast, we have an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects work for Amazon’s Étoile, featuring an in-depth discussion with David Gaddie from Afterparty VFX. The team undertook the challenging face replacement work for the show’s ballet dancers, employing cutting-edge AI technology to seamlessly blend lead actors’ faces onto the performances of professional dance doubles.

Étoile, the latest series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, renowned creator of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls, centers on elite ballet dancers. To realize this vision, the show’s VFX supervisor, Lesley Robson Foster, engaged Afterparty VFX to research and develop innovative AI-driven solutions capable of handling the demanding visual complexities inherent in ballet sequences.

This task was notably difficult, as traditional deepfake tools are typically optimized for straightforward, frontal shots. Ballet, however, involves rapid spinning, flips, significant motion blur, and hair frequently obscuring faces, creating immense technical hurdles. Additionally, director Amy Sherman-Palladino preferred long, uninterrupted takes, some lasting nearly a full minute, eliminating conventional editing methods and cheats used to mask transitions between the actors and their dance doubles. Crucially, the final shots needed to authentically reflect the actors’ performances, rather than simply showcasing their doubles.
In this episode, we explore in-depth how David Gaddie and the Afterparty VFX team developed proprietary solutions tailored specifically to these unique challenges. Their process combined computer-generated imagery, advanced AI, meticulous data segmentation, extensive manual refinements, and significant artistic skill to achieve convincing, performance-driven visual effects.
#fxpodcast #chefs #data #etoile #machine

fxpodcast: Chefs of data – Etoile and machine learning
On this episode of the fxpodcast, we have an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects work for Amazon’s Étoile, featuring an in-depth discussion with David Gaddie from Afterparty VFX. The team undertook the challenging face replacement work for the show’s ballet dancers, employing cutting-edge AI technology to seamlessly blend lead actors’ faces onto the performances of professional dance doubles. Étoile, the latest series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, renowned creator of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls, centers on elite ballet dancers. To realize this vision, the show’s VFX supervisor, Lesley Robson Foster, engaged Afterparty VFX to research and develop innovative AI-driven solutions capable of handling the demanding visual complexities inherent in ballet sequences. This task was notably difficult, as traditional deepfake tools are typically optimized for straightforward, frontal shots. Ballet, however, involves rapid spinning, flips, significant motion blur, and hair frequently obscuring faces, creating immense technical hurdles. Additionally, director Amy Sherman-Palladino preferred long, uninterrupted takes, some lasting nearly a full minute, eliminating conventional editing methods and cheats used to mask transitions between the actors and their dance doubles. Crucially, the final shots needed to authentically reflect the actors’ performances, rather than simply showcasing their doubles. In this episode, we explore in-depth how David Gaddie and the Afterparty VFX team developed proprietary solutions tailored specifically to these unique challenges. Their process combined computer-generated imagery, advanced AI, meticulous data segmentation, extensive manual refinements, and significant artistic skill to achieve convincing, performance-driven visual effects. #fxpodcast #chefs #data #etoile #machine

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fxpodcast: Chefs of data – Etoile and machine learning

On this episode of the fxpodcast, we have an exclusive behind-the-scenes look at the visual effects work for Amazon’s Étoile, featuring an in-depth discussion with David Gaddie from Afterparty VFX. The team undertook the challenging face replacement work for the show’s ballet dancers, employing cutting-edge AI technology to seamlessly blend lead actors’ faces onto the performances of professional dance doubles. Étoile, the latest series from Amy Sherman-Palladino, renowned creator of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls, centers on elite ballet dancers. To realize this vision, the show’s VFX supervisor, Lesley Robson Foster, engaged Afterparty VFX to research and develop innovative AI-driven solutions capable of handling the demanding visual complexities inherent in ballet sequences. This task was notably difficult, as traditional deepfake tools are typically optimized for straightforward, frontal shots. Ballet, however, involves rapid spinning, flips, significant motion blur, and hair frequently obscuring faces, creating immense technical hurdles. Additionally, director Amy Sherman-Palladino preferred long, uninterrupted takes, some lasting nearly a full minute, eliminating conventional editing methods and cheats used to mask transitions between the actors and their dance doubles. Crucially, the final shots needed to authentically reflect the actors’ performances, rather than simply showcasing their doubles. In this episode, we explore in-depth how David Gaddie and the Afterparty VFX team developed proprietary solutions tailored specifically to these unique challenges. Their process combined computer-generated imagery, advanced AI, meticulous data segmentation, extensive manual refinements, and significant artistic skill to achieve convincing, performance-driven visual effects.

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2025-05-31 09:26:19 ·

Is generative AI really 'just a tool'?

"AI is inevitable."That's a phrase that's rattled around my head for a month. Not willingly mind you. It's taken up lodging in my grey matter after hearing it in meetings, reading it in emails, and seeing it buffeted back and forth across Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Discord.It's not a convincing phrase. If you hear it from AI boosters it's easy to brush off as raw hype, and if you hear it from doomsayers it can lull you into a sense of fatalism. But as the philosopher Natasha Bedingfield told us in 2004, today is where the book begins, the rest is still unwritten. Nothing, for better or worse, is inevitable.But in those various calls another phrase—one you may have heard at your studio—has slipped past more unnoticed: "AI is just a tool. It can be used for good or evil, like any other tool."After all this is a business where we use tools for good or evil, right and wrong, correctly and incorrectly. We debate the effectiveness of Unity, Unreal, or Godot. We agonize over whether to use procedural versus hand-crafted content. We debate and discuss the topic so much that Game Developers Conference has a whole Tools Summit dedicated to craft of making game development software.Viewing generative AI through the neutral lens of tool assessment is natural—and I'll go so far as to say admirable—for our community. It's a method we use to get past hype and bombast, to try and take technology on its own terms and see how it fits our purposes. And as the 2025 GDC State of the Industry report tells us, some developers are adopting generative AI, plenty of them not bought in on the hype but through the act of seeking the right tool for the job.Related:But looking at generative AI as 'just a tool' is a deeply flawed lens. That phrase betrays a quiet cynicism. Because nothing—not generative AI, not a firearm, not even a hammer—is "just a tool."The function of tools is influenced by their formConsider two tools found in many American households: the claw hammer and the handgun.Normally Game Developer restricts itself to the craft of making video games but I promise this is relevant. Guns are another tool where neutralizing rhetoric is deployed to downplay a tool's negative effects. I grew up in a gun-owning house in a gun-owning neighborhood in suburban Maryland. There were probably four handguns sitting in lockboxes across two rooms, a few rifles and shotguns in a vault in the basement, and one questionably legal World War I firearm tucked away in a closet. The NRA's mantra of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" was commonplace. A neighbor of mine laughed when I advocated for stronger regulations on gun ownership on the basis of "guns are meant to kill." "Guns aren't meant to kill," I recall him saying. "Cars can kill people. Does that mean cars are meant for killing?"His point boils down to this: The outcome of the tool's use is not worth considering when discussing regulation, only its potential use. A gun is a tool and the user has control over a tool is used.Cars are already tightly regulated and cost thousands of dollars, making his point moot, so we'll break down the construction of the claw hammer instead. We generally refer to hammers as being used to pound nails into wood, but I mainly use mine for hammering anchors into drywall because I'm a theater kid and was taught in crew to trust screws.In either case, the physical shape of the claw hammer dictates its most common purpose. The handle extends into a metal object that is blunt at one end, and clawed on the other. The design follows the swing of the human arm, transferring kinetic energy generated by the bicep, down the elbow, through the wrist, and into the blunt end.We also know that claw hammers are not useful for every form of transferring this energy. Variations on hammer design like the ball-peen hammer show how this basic purpose needs to be altered for different tasks. The shape and the material changes depending on the purpose. To sell more hammers, companies invest in better materials and affordances like rubber grips to make their use more comfortable.Like a firearm, hammers can be used as weapons. That same transference of force can be used to harm another living being. Video games sometimes place hammers in a players' loadout alongside guns, grenades, and weapons of war.Neither the hammer nor the firearm is "just" a tool. They are tools that are optimized for a purpose. We can study that purpose, and cast judgements about a tool's safety, merits, and need to be regulated based on that.But. The shape of the hammer is not an efficient way to inflict harm. This is supported by data from the FBI Crime Statistics survey, which gathers data filed by police departments that participate in assembling data. "Handgun" is the most common weapon used in homicides, and "knife/cutting instrument" ranks higher than "blunt objects." That's because handguns are an incredibly efficient means of wounding living beings.Let's break down the handgun the way we did the hammer. Handguns are assembled from an assortment of components that transfer the squeeze of a trigger into the strike of a hammer against a firing pin, which strikes the primer of a bullet's cartridge and sends it propelling out of the tube. Though some bullets seen in larger firearms are meant to penetrate metal, a handgun's bullet is envisioned and designed to cut through flesh.Image via Adobe Stock.These constraints make handguns efficient at few other tasks. In a pinch you could use the butt of a handgun as a hammer. I can't find any data about them being used for that purpose. I can only wander onto a construction site and count the number of firearms in toolboxes as a general sample size.Neither the hammer nor the firearm is "just" a tool. They are tools that are optimized for a purpose. We can study that purpose, and cast judgements about a tool's safety, merits, and need to be regulated based on that. Firearm advocates oppose this process through neutralizing language because it's difficult to dispute the correlation between the number of guns versus the number of murders and assaults with guns in a geographic area.Generative AI proponents sometimes regurgitate that language when defending this new technology. Because like the gun lobby, they don't want the purpose of generative AI decided by its outcomes, only its potential.What is that purpose? It may be the death of truth itself.Generative AI is broadly used to deceive through mimicryGenerative AI is a tool for deception.That's not what its biggest backers will tell you. It's broadly pitched as a tool for efficiency. But efficiency is hard to measure and easy to game. Deception is loud and obvious. Students are using it to cheat on papers. Scam calls with AI-generated voices are on the rise. The Department Human Health and Services published a study citing secretary Kennedy's unfounded health views that cites nonexistent studies, likely generated through AI. There was that cadre of YouTubers creating AI-generated fake movie trailers to attract clicks and make money off people who don't follow entertainment use. Apple marketed Apple Intelligence with advertisements showing people deceiving their neighbors, family, and coworkers. Activision Blizzard used generative AI to advertise games that don't exist.Now here's the rub: games—and all of entertainment—are also a form of deception. We use the phrase "magic circle" to describe how we attract players into our worlds. We use camera tricks, rendering technology, and even VO barks to simulate digital worlds. People engage with games, film, TV, books, and especially magic shows because on some level they want to be not just deceived, but lied to. AI has also been sold as technology that will let every player make their own perfect experience tailored for them by generating worlds, visual assets, and audio on the fly. But the best pitches I've heard for AI tend to "hide" the presence of the LLM, only mildly asking the player for prompts in order to accomplish behind-the-scenes computing tasks. These lies can make shared realities, not wholly distinct ones.That is the difference between telling lies to make virtual worlds and and telling lies to shape the real one. Lies in virtual worlds create shared realities. Lies in the real world tear them down.How appropriate that one such "shared reality," the Star Wars show Andor, recently warned us about the price we pay with treating AI as "just a tool." "The loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous," said the character Mon Mothma in a climactic speech decrying the whitewashing of a carefully executed genocide."When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest."Game Developers Conference and Game Developer are sibling organizations under Informa.
#generative #really #039just #tool039

Is generative AI really 'just a tool'?
"AI is inevitable."That's a phrase that's rattled around my head for a month. Not willingly mind you. It's taken up lodging in my grey matter after hearing it in meetings, reading it in emails, and seeing it buffeted back and forth across Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Discord.It's not a convincing phrase. If you hear it from AI boosters it's easy to brush off as raw hype, and if you hear it from doomsayers it can lull you into a sense of fatalism. But as the philosopher Natasha Bedingfield told us in 2004, today is where the book begins, the rest is still unwritten. Nothing, for better or worse, is inevitable.But in those various calls another phrase—one you may have heard at your studio—has slipped past more unnoticed: "AI is just a tool. It can be used for good or evil, like any other tool."After all this is a business where we use tools for good or evil, right and wrong, correctly and incorrectly. We debate the effectiveness of Unity, Unreal, or Godot. We agonize over whether to use procedural versus hand-crafted content. We debate and discuss the topic so much that Game Developers Conference has a whole Tools Summit dedicated to craft of making game development software.Viewing generative AI through the neutral lens of tool assessment is natural—and I'll go so far as to say admirable—for our community. It's a method we use to get past hype and bombast, to try and take technology on its own terms and see how it fits our purposes. And as the 2025 GDC State of the Industry report tells us, some developers are adopting generative AI, plenty of them not bought in on the hype but through the act of seeking the right tool for the job.Related:But looking at generative AI as 'just a tool' is a deeply flawed lens. That phrase betrays a quiet cynicism. Because nothing—not generative AI, not a firearm, not even a hammer—is "just a tool."The function of tools is influenced by their formConsider two tools found in many American households: the claw hammer and the handgun.Normally Game Developer restricts itself to the craft of making video games but I promise this is relevant. Guns are another tool where neutralizing rhetoric is deployed to downplay a tool's negative effects. I grew up in a gun-owning house in a gun-owning neighborhood in suburban Maryland. There were probably four handguns sitting in lockboxes across two rooms, a few rifles and shotguns in a vault in the basement, and one questionably legal World War I firearm tucked away in a closet. The NRA's mantra of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" was commonplace. A neighbor of mine laughed when I advocated for stronger regulations on gun ownership on the basis of "guns are meant to kill." "Guns aren't meant to kill," I recall him saying. "Cars can kill people. Does that mean cars are meant for killing?"His point boils down to this: The outcome of the tool's use is not worth considering when discussing regulation, only its potential use. A gun is a tool and the user has control over a tool is used.Cars are already tightly regulated and cost thousands of dollars, making his point moot, so we'll break down the construction of the claw hammer instead. We generally refer to hammers as being used to pound nails into wood, but I mainly use mine for hammering anchors into drywall because I'm a theater kid and was taught in crew to trust screws.In either case, the physical shape of the claw hammer dictates its most common purpose. The handle extends into a metal object that is blunt at one end, and clawed on the other. The design follows the swing of the human arm, transferring kinetic energy generated by the bicep, down the elbow, through the wrist, and into the blunt end.We also know that claw hammers are not useful for every form of transferring this energy. Variations on hammer design like the ball-peen hammer show how this basic purpose needs to be altered for different tasks. The shape and the material changes depending on the purpose. To sell more hammers, companies invest in better materials and affordances like rubber grips to make their use more comfortable.Like a firearm, hammers can be used as weapons. That same transference of force can be used to harm another living being. Video games sometimes place hammers in a players' loadout alongside guns, grenades, and weapons of war.Neither the hammer nor the firearm is "just" a tool. They are tools that are optimized for a purpose. We can study that purpose, and cast judgements about a tool's safety, merits, and need to be regulated based on that.But. The shape of the hammer is not an efficient way to inflict harm. This is supported by data from the FBI Crime Statistics survey, which gathers data filed by police departments that participate in assembling data. "Handgun" is the most common weapon used in homicides, and "knife/cutting instrument" ranks higher than "blunt objects." That's because handguns are an incredibly efficient means of wounding living beings.Let's break down the handgun the way we did the hammer. Handguns are assembled from an assortment of components that transfer the squeeze of a trigger into the strike of a hammer against a firing pin, which strikes the primer of a bullet's cartridge and sends it propelling out of the tube. Though some bullets seen in larger firearms are meant to penetrate metal, a handgun's bullet is envisioned and designed to cut through flesh.Image via Adobe Stock.These constraints make handguns efficient at few other tasks. In a pinch you could use the butt of a handgun as a hammer. I can't find any data about them being used for that purpose. I can only wander onto a construction site and count the number of firearms in toolboxes as a general sample size.Neither the hammer nor the firearm is "just" a tool. They are tools that are optimized for a purpose. We can study that purpose, and cast judgements about a tool's safety, merits, and need to be regulated based on that. Firearm advocates oppose this process through neutralizing language because it's difficult to dispute the correlation between the number of guns versus the number of murders and assaults with guns in a geographic area.Generative AI proponents sometimes regurgitate that language when defending this new technology. Because like the gun lobby, they don't want the purpose of generative AI decided by its outcomes, only its potential.What is that purpose? It may be the death of truth itself.Generative AI is broadly used to deceive through mimicryGenerative AI is a tool for deception.That's not what its biggest backers will tell you. It's broadly pitched as a tool for efficiency. But efficiency is hard to measure and easy to game. Deception is loud and obvious. Students are using it to cheat on papers. Scam calls with AI-generated voices are on the rise. The Department Human Health and Services published a study citing secretary Kennedy's unfounded health views that cites nonexistent studies, likely generated through AI. There was that cadre of YouTubers creating AI-generated fake movie trailers to attract clicks and make money off people who don't follow entertainment use. Apple marketed Apple Intelligence with advertisements showing people deceiving their neighbors, family, and coworkers. Activision Blizzard used generative AI to advertise games that don't exist.Now here's the rub: games—and all of entertainment—are also a form of deception. We use the phrase "magic circle" to describe how we attract players into our worlds. We use camera tricks, rendering technology, and even VO barks to simulate digital worlds. People engage with games, film, TV, books, and especially magic shows because on some level they want to be not just deceived, but lied to. AI has also been sold as technology that will let every player make their own perfect experience tailored for them by generating worlds, visual assets, and audio on the fly. But the best pitches I've heard for AI tend to "hide" the presence of the LLM, only mildly asking the player for prompts in order to accomplish behind-the-scenes computing tasks. These lies can make shared realities, not wholly distinct ones.That is the difference between telling lies to make virtual worlds and and telling lies to shape the real one. Lies in virtual worlds create shared realities. Lies in the real world tear them down.How appropriate that one such "shared reality," the Star Wars show Andor, recently warned us about the price we pay with treating AI as "just a tool." "The loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous," said the character Mon Mothma in a climactic speech decrying the whitewashing of a carefully executed genocide."When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest."Game Developers Conference and Game Developer are sibling organizations under Informa. #generative #really #039just #tool039

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Is generative AI really 'just a tool'?

"AI is inevitable."That's a phrase that's rattled around my head for a month. Not willingly mind you. It's taken up lodging in my grey matter after hearing it in meetings, reading it in emails, and seeing it buffeted back and forth across Bluesky, LinkedIn, and Discord.It's not a convincing phrase. If you hear it from AI boosters it's easy to brush off as raw hype, and if you hear it from doomsayers it can lull you into a sense of fatalism. But as the philosopher Natasha Bedingfield told us in 2004, today is where the book begins, the rest is still unwritten. Nothing, for better or worse, is inevitable.But in those various calls another phrase—one you may have heard at your studio—has slipped past more unnoticed: "AI is just a tool. It can be used for good or evil, like any other tool."After all this is a business where we use tools for good or evil, right and wrong, correctly and incorrectly. We debate the effectiveness of Unity, Unreal, or Godot. We agonize over whether to use procedural versus hand-crafted content. We debate and discuss the topic so much that Game Developers Conference has a whole Tools Summit dedicated to craft of making game development software.Viewing generative AI through the neutral lens of tool assessment is natural—and I'll go so far as to say admirable—for our community. It's a method we use to get past hype and bombast, to try and take technology on its own terms and see how it fits our purposes. And as the 2025 GDC State of the Industry report tells us, some developers are adopting generative AI, plenty of them not bought in on the hype but through the act of seeking the right tool for the job.Related:But looking at generative AI as 'just a tool' is a deeply flawed lens. That phrase betrays a quiet cynicism (one we hear often from opponents of firearm regulation in the United Stats). Because nothing—not generative AI, not a firearm, not even a hammer—is "just a tool."The function of tools is influenced by their formConsider two tools found in many American households: the claw hammer and the handgun.Normally Game Developer restricts itself to the craft of making video games but I promise this is relevant. Guns are another tool where neutralizing rhetoric is deployed to downplay a tool's negative effects. I grew up in a gun-owning house in a gun-owning neighborhood in suburban Maryland. There were probably four handguns sitting in lockboxes across two rooms, a few rifles and shotguns in a vault in the basement, and one questionably legal World War I firearm tucked away in a closet. The NRA's mantra of "guns don't kill people, people kill people" was commonplace. A neighbor of mine laughed when I advocated for stronger regulations on gun ownership on the basis of "guns are meant to kill." "Guns aren't meant to kill," I recall him saying. "Cars can kill people. Does that mean cars are meant for killing?"His point boils down to this: The outcome of the tool's use is not worth considering when discussing regulation, only its potential use. A gun is a tool and the user has control over a tool is used.Cars are already tightly regulated and cost thousands of dollars, making his point moot, so we'll break down the construction of the claw hammer instead. We generally refer to hammers as being used to pound nails into wood, but I mainly use mine for hammering anchors into drywall because I'm a theater kid and was taught in crew to trust screws.In either case, the physical shape of the claw hammer dictates its most common purpose. The handle extends into a metal object that is blunt at one end, and clawed on the other. The design follows the swing of the human arm, transferring kinetic energy generated by the bicep, down the elbow, through the wrist, and into the blunt end.We also know that claw hammers are not useful for every form of transferring this energy. Variations on hammer design like the ball-peen hammer show how this basic purpose needs to be altered for different tasks. The shape and the material changes depending on the purpose. To sell more hammers, companies invest in better materials and affordances like rubber grips to make their use more comfortable.Like a firearm, hammers can be used as weapons. That same transference of force can be used to harm another living being. Video games sometimes place hammers in a players' loadout alongside guns, grenades, and weapons of war.Neither the hammer nor the firearm is "just" a tool. They are tools that are optimized for a purpose. We can study that purpose, and cast judgements about a tool's safety, merits, and need to be regulated based on that.But. The shape of the hammer is not an efficient way to inflict harm. This is supported by data from the FBI Crime Statistics survey, which gathers data filed by police departments that participate in assembling data. "Handgun" is the most common weapon used in homicides, and "knife/cutting instrument" ranks higher than "blunt objects." That's because handguns are an incredibly efficient means of wounding living beings.Let's break down the handgun the way we did the hammer. Handguns are assembled from an assortment of components that transfer the squeeze of a trigger into the strike of a hammer against a firing pin, which strikes the primer of a bullet's cartridge and sends it propelling out of the tube. Though some bullets seen in larger firearms are meant to penetrate metal, a handgun's bullet is envisioned and designed to cut through flesh.Image via Adobe Stock.These constraints make handguns efficient at few other tasks. In a pinch you could use the butt of a handgun as a hammer. I can't find any data about them being used for that purpose. I can only wander onto a construction site and count the number of firearms in toolboxes as a general sample size.Neither the hammer nor the firearm is "just" a tool. They are tools that are optimized for a purpose. We can study that purpose, and cast judgements about a tool's safety, merits, and need to be regulated based on that. Firearm advocates oppose this process through neutralizing language because it's difficult to dispute the correlation between the number of guns versus the number of murders and assaults with guns in a geographic area.Generative AI proponents sometimes regurgitate that language when defending this new technology. Because like the gun lobby, they don't want the purpose of generative AI decided by its outcomes, only its potential.What is that purpose? It may be the death of truth itself.Generative AI is broadly used to deceive through mimicryGenerative AI is a tool for deception.That's not what its biggest backers will tell you. It's broadly pitched as a tool for efficiency. But efficiency is hard to measure and easy to game. Deception is loud and obvious. Students are using it to cheat on papers. Scam calls with AI-generated voices are on the rise. The Department Human Health and Services published a study citing secretary Kennedy's unfounded health views that cites nonexistent studies, likely generated through AI. There was that cadre of YouTubers creating AI-generated fake movie trailers to attract clicks and make money off people who don't follow entertainment use. Apple marketed Apple Intelligence with advertisements showing people deceiving their neighbors, family, and coworkers. Activision Blizzard used generative AI to advertise games that don't exist.Now here's the rub: games—and all of entertainment—are also a form of deception. We use the phrase "magic circle" to describe how we attract players into our worlds. We use camera tricks, rendering technology, and even VO barks to simulate digital worlds. People engage with games, film, TV, books, and especially magic shows because on some level they want to be not just deceived, but lied to. AI has also been sold as technology that will let every player make their own perfect experience tailored for them by generating worlds, visual assets, and audio on the fly. But the best pitches I've heard for AI tend to "hide" the presence of the LLM, only mildly asking the player for prompts in order to accomplish behind-the-scenes computing tasks. These lies can make shared realities, not wholly distinct ones.That is the difference between telling lies to make virtual worlds and and telling lies to shape the real one. Lies in virtual worlds create shared realities. Lies in the real world tear them down.How appropriate that one such "shared reality," the Star Wars show Andor, recently warned us about the price we pay with treating AI as "just a tool." "The loss of an objective reality is perhaps the most dangerous," said the character Mon Mothma in a climactic speech decrying the whitewashing of a carefully executed genocide."When truth leaves us, when we let it slip away, when it is ripped from our hands, we become vulnerable to the appetite of whatever monster screams the loudest."Game Developers Conference and Game Developer are sibling organizations under Informa.

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