The need for cuts at KO-OP came about for the same reason they’ve been happening at so many other game studios these days: the funding dried up. Dabbous said KO-OP has been on shaky ground before–“KO-OP has never had a game that's been a hit and has brought sustainable revenue into the studio. By all means, KO-OP should not exist.”--but that in the past they’ve usually been able to get funding for their next project within six months of finishing the previous one.

I think the nature of running a co-operative in the games industry does not exactly remove the element of risk from the business prospects, but I'm glad to hear that it's at least more democratic and communicative.

When I write code, the code stops writing when my fingers do. I am making concrete a vision I have in my head of my goal, like the nail being driven into the wood. These operations feel discrete to me in a way I find pleasing. This lack in AI coding programs feels very stark to me, one doesn't seem to be 'using a tool' in a literal sense.

His viral post had captured a feeling of exhaustion and frustration that so many can relate to with the flood of AI-generated ‘slop’ and then, ironically, that very viral attention had sent others off to generate their own AI rip-offs of his work.

The framing of this article is kind of odd -- "isn't it weird this guy was accused of being AI?" is not the principal issue here. The issue here is that he put together a handmade ad and it was immediately copied by the AI generated small business losers online who have access to grok. AI is bad and it's filling the internet with useless shit!!

Because big tech doesn't do customer service, we are being inundated with AI-generated emails begging us for help.

Strange example, but yet another case of the modern LLM craze filling the internet with useless shit.

Are companies genuinely planning their workforce requirements, or are they experimenting with how few developers they can get away with now that AI is involved?Because from where I’m standing, it increasingly feels like developers are becoming disposable resources in a giant experiment.

To be clear, I feel very bad for this author who appears to be on the receiving end of a rapidly enshittifying company (Plex, which I use regularly but am basically always expecting to fall apart at a moment's notice). However, it is clear that the author is also a user and promoter of the very technologies that put him out of work, which strikes me as very short-sighted. Nevertheless, it is a good look inside a very frustrating industry.

LLM technology is catnip to these large company structures -- it's an excuse for them to lay off huge swaths of their workforces without any extra explanation. We can simply "do it with AI", a claim that is dubious at best and is unfortunately only emboldened by rank-and-file workers endorsing this technology. Chewing off your own foot and then complaining that it's hard to walk.

In the last few months, Yen set up an email address for employees to contact if they come across anything blocking adoption of AI at Proton, so leadership can “ruthlessly smash everything that stands in the way of AI velocity;” Proton installed software on workers’ computers that track how much AI code the company is generating; and Yen said this is the last year that Proton will hire engineers at all, and instead only hire people to build things with AI.

By all appearances, Proton's CEO and CTO are both in the throes of a deep and disturbing bout of AI psychosis and it's putting a lot of people who rely on their products in danger. Diversify soon, methinks.