For sure it’s intellectually interesting if AI can generate something novel within demoscene constraints (140 chars or extreme low res or a POKEY chip at 1MHz or whatever) … something humans maybe thought impossible … like a winning move that makes a go or chess grandmaster say WTF. It changes what’s possible. But then most of us (?) still hope the sport/scene/art goes back to human endeavour.
I’ve been to parties where demos are running on a large screen, even ones we’ve seen before, and the audience will ooo and aah because a human figured out how to do that stuff under constraint. The magic is lost if it’s generated IMO.
Or because the audience appreciates the artists' emotion and creative effort embodied in what they're watching. The Razor1911 demo, released at Revision 2026, is a great example there - there's some neat effects but nothing groundbreaking, but that isn't the point. It's a retrospective on the group that produced it, and the surrounding scene, and that's what won it the competition.
Appropriate uses for AI could be to trace the history of demoscene effects, or to explain how a particular scene works so you can understand it better. Nobody in the scene wants a magic box that solves the puzzle for them.
Largely true for all people who do creatively skilled tasks, and yet AI is still coming for all of us.
I shouldn’t add to this mess.
I used to have a reasonable experience on HN.
Disillusioned words like bullets bark
As human gods aim for their mark
Make everything from toy guns that spark
To flesh-colored Christs that glow in the dark
It’s easy to see without looking too far
That not much is really sacred> I came across Dwitter.net, which is like Twitter but for 140 character JavaScript demos. They already supported “remix”-ing any dweet so that we can build on top of them.
Relatedly, I was a bit surprised and delighted to find out that the Sonic (the Hedgehog) community is vehemently rejecting AI recompiles, ports, and fangame projects. Clankers are ok with them when it comes to Dr. Robotnik's evil creations, but not in the real world!
To me, demoscene was about embracing new technology and using it to express yourself.
It's enshrined now and so I find it to have served it's purpose. Look forward, not back.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demosthenes
Would be fun to see models trained on ancient figures that you could interact and chat with.
Less fun to see models imitating human art, they’re not ready for that yet IMP because they’re too derivative and not creative in interesting ways in the way that humans are.