May PC Gamer Article Discussion

[Hveðrungr]

If you're a crossword fan you soon become disabused of the notion that the LLMs are “intelligent”. E.g. I tried to ask them for an instrument with the second letter P, and they suggested Piano, Piccolo. They struggle to process the concept of numbers or that words have functional properties beyond semantics.

Another infamous example is if you ask an LLM the following riddle:

A mother and son were in a car accident where the mother was killed. The ambulance brought the son to the hospital. He needed immediate surgery. In the operating room, a doctor came in and looked at the little boy and said, “I can't operate on him: he is my son.” Who is the doctor?

The LLM will answer, every time, that the doctor is the boy's mother (and give you a little lecture on sexism to boot), because in the thousands upon thousands of times it has seen that kind of passage in its training data, the answer was always that the doctor is the mother, because that's the standard riddle. Because an LLM is really just the best predictive text algorithm ever invented, it is incapable of understanding the vital switch in the format, because everything it knows says that when you see this kind of passage, you answer “The doctor is the boy's mother”.

 

[Hveðrungr]

It's far more permissive in what it will answer than Copilot. I need to use one of them because they are great tools.

Fair, but then why not use raw ChatGPT, rather than the lobotomised CoPilot branch of ChatGPT? I think most users believe, and I probably agree, that it is the best LLM available at the moment.

There's also gab.ai of course, which is designed from the ground up to avoid unnecessary wokeness.

 

[Hveðrungr]

So far Chatgpt 4.0 and the Gooogle search AI is only in USA.

I have good news for you: https://openai.com/index/hello-gpt-4o/

GPT-4o is available right now. I'm in the UK and using it as we speak. (It's giving me suggestions for composers to listen to.)

 

[Colif]

Guess its just the Google one that only works in USA right now. I had just assumed it was both.

 

[ZedClampet]

Fair, but then why not use raw ChatGPT, rather than the lobotomised CoPilot branch of ChatGPT? I think most users believe, and I probably agree, that it is the best LLM available at the moment.

There's also gab.ai of course, which is designed from the ground up to avoid unnecessary wokeness.

Honestly? Because it makes me log in every time I go there, and then I usually have to cycle through several pop-ups. I have Gemini in my bookmarks bar. I just click on it and start typing my question. I just use it to answer game questions and for general info I'm curious about. It's non-essential so the easiest/fastest solution is what I use.

And if I want to make a picture, I'm not sure the raw ChatGPT does that, so I just use CoPilot. It makes much better pictures than any others that I've tried.

 

[Colif]

The last two Ubisoft games announced both follow a trend. Have a controversial main character that acts as camouflage for you increasing the prices of all new games going forward, to $130 for the full version, or pay us $19 a month to rent it until we take the servers offline in 2 years or so.

Steam is only service which doesn't cost every month to maintain a games library and doesn't remove them from your library, or cancel your membership if you don't logon every 3 months. I hope it remains like that. Hate to have it taken over by one of the other companies. Its the only sane island in a sea of insanity.

The rest see how console subsciptions work and want to tie PC users into same situation. Pay to keep your games. Pay to even play them...
Might cancel my game pass. I don't think I ever actually played any of the games.

 

[ZedClampet]

The last two Ubisoft games announced both follow a trend. Have a controversial main character that acts as camouflage for you increasing the prices of all new games going forward, to $130 for the full version, or pay us $19 a month to rent it until we take the servers offline in 2 years or so.

Steam is only service which doesn't cost every month to maintain a games library and doesn't remove them from your library, or cancel your membership if you don't logon every 3 months. I hope it remains like that. Hate to have it taken over by one of the other companies. Its the only sane island in a sea of insanity.

The rest see how console subsciptions work and want to tie PC users into same situation. Pay to keep your games. Pay to even play them...
Might cancel my game pass. I don't think I ever actually played any of the games.

Who knows what will happen? I don't see Steam ever requiring a monthly fee unless they get bought out by a large company. Of course, right now there's a little bit of competition, which is good. Epic would just say, "come over here and play for free" and that would be the end of it.

What I COULD see Steam doing is creating its own version of Game Pass. Over 14k games were released on Steam last year, and this year looks to be about the same, so it would be "easy" to cobble together some sort of subscription service that gives you access to 2000 games or something.

 

[BeardyHat]

The last two Ubisoft games announced both follow a trend. Have a controversial main character that acts as camouflage for you increasing the prices of all new games going forward, to $130 for the full version, or pay us $19 a month to rent it until we take the servers offline in 2 years or so.

Steam is only service which doesn't cost every month to maintain a games library and doesn't remove them from your library, or cancel your membership if you don't logon every 3 months. I hope it remains like that. Hate to have it taken over by one of the other companies. Its the only sane island in a sea of insanity.

The rest see how console subsciptions work and want to tie PC users into same situation. Pay to keep your games. Pay to even play them...
Might cancel my game pass. I don't think I ever actually played any of the games.

Game Pass is nice, but I already have a vast library of games I've never played, but have already paid for. This is why I cancelled my sub.

Who knows what will happen? I don't see Steam ever requiring a monthly fee unless they get bought out by a large company. Of course, right now there's a little bit of competition, which is good. Epic would just say, "come over here and play for free" and that would be the end of it.

What I COULD see Steam doing is creating its own version of Game Pass. Over 14k games were released on Steam last year, and this year looks to be about the same, so it would be "easy" to cobble together some sort of subscription service that gives you access to 2000 games or something.

I worry for the future of Steam. My account is 20 years old now and I think about where it will be in another 20, Gaben has probably stepped away, voluntarily or not and now who's running the show? Is it parted out to venture capitalists? Sold to Microsoft? What do they do to grow their user base that is anti consumer?

Nothing lasts forever, I suppose, but I like that my Steam library has followed me through two decades of new computers and stages in my life.

 

[Brian Boru]

one that isn't biased politically … stop AI from making up things that don't exist

Make your mind up

“The doctor is the boy's mother”

Did you clearly specify that zombies are not a thing? Else Chat was legit in picking mom

Steam is only service which doesn't cost every month to maintain a games library and doesn't remove them from your library, or cancel your membership if you don't logon every 3 months

There are plenty of services which do that, incl all of the ones I use—eight at last count.

 

[ZedClampet]

There are plenty of services which do that, incl all of the ones I use—eight at last count.

Yeah, those are not the same at all.

 

[Hveðrungr]

Did you clearly specify that zombies are not a thing? Else Chat was legit in picking mom

A mother and son were in a car accident where the mother was killed. The ambulance brought the son to the hospital. He needed immediate surgery. In the operating room, a doctor came in, looked at the little boy and said, “BRAAAIIIIIINS!” Who is the doctor?

 

[Hveðrungr]

Google's new AI search feature has been recommending people drink urine ('light in color') so here's how to turn its AI Overviews off to avoid such dodgy advice

There are a couple different ways to opt-out of the new Google AI service its automatically opting you into.

www.pcgamer.com

I said ChatGPT is better than Gemini. It's really mind-blowing just how bad Gemini is, and that's coming from someone who uses a lot of Google products, i.e. I'm not a hater.

 

[ZedClampet]

Google's new AI search feature has been recommending people drink urine ('light in color') so here's how to turn its AI Overviews off to avoid such dodgy advice

There are a couple different ways to opt-out of the new Google AI service its automatically opting you into.

www.pcgamer.com

I said ChatGPT is better than Gemini. It's really mind-blowing just how bad Gemini is, and that's coming from someone who uses a lot of Google products, i.e. I'm not a hater.

Meh, I could write a book of things ChatGPT has gotten wrong. They are all unreliable. But I've learned what they can and can't do and when to be suspicious. I rarely get fooled anymore.

 

[Colif]

Shame those instructions only work on Chrome. It isn't the best browser to use if you want to avoid ads... but I can't find a way to block this on Firefox on PC yet.

But then its not in any country apart from US yet so hopefully something will show in the mean time.

Oddly, of the 3 Future websites that show that link, only Tom's also shows how to block on mobile

Bye Bye, AI: How to turn off Google's annoying AI overviews and just get search results

You can configure your browser to return only web page results.

www.tomshardware.com

Google really wants people to stop using them, don't they.

 

[Pifanjr]

Mighty allfather of FPS games and co-creator of Doom John Romero decrees that 'gib' is pronounced in the most upsetting way possible

Gifs all over again.

www.pcgamer.com

I don't think I've ever thought about how to pronounce gib in this meaning or where it came from. I would lean towards using a hard g, but maybe that's because I'm more familiar with gib as the "pronunciation spelling" (as Wiktionary calls it) of "give".

It does seem to be contentious topic though, there are already over 150 comments under the article.

 

[Hveðrungr]

It's always been pronounced “jib”. Truly god-tier hateclick-farming by Harvey, I sincerely salute him and hope his pay for the article is contracted to increase with each pageview and comment.

 

[Zloth]

It's a hard g, as in "gorram it!" (Also, the guy was clearly saying "Laurel.")

 

[ZedClampet]

Families of Uvalde victims sue Activision, say Call of Duty is 'the most prolific and effective marketer of assault weapons in the United States'

The families have also sued Instagram and gun maker Daniel Defense.

www.pcgamer.com

Could we be nearing the end of real weapons being recreated in games? If this ridiculous lawsuit is successful, then we just might be there.

I suppose if the school shooter hadn't seen this weapon in a game that he would have just decided not to do the shooting at all *eye roll*. Hey, maybe we are going to just get rid of bullet tossers altogether if every murder gets blamed on a video game and the publisher actually has to pay out in court. I mean, what if a squirrel actually shoots someone?

 

[Colif]

take bullet tossers away, people use sharp objects... refer London. Taking away the tool doesn't stop the act, just slows it down a little. Need to be more creative.

video games corrupting our youth... 1990's it was Heavy Metal... still another 30 years or so before games are so common no one blames them for anything.

Current rumour that Black Ops 6 could have a 9/11 mission... they sure like being sued lol.
COD dead as SBMM nerfs all challenge out of game. It might get sales but good players don't get any challenge outside of lag now. So it can't keep them interested.

 

[Brian Boru]

this ridiculous lawsuit

…

1990's it was Heavy Metal

"There was no sex in Ireland before television"
—Oliver J. Flanagan

 

[Pifanjr]

You can't take it with you, but you can't leave it for someone else either: Valve says you aren't allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will

All these unfinished, 75% off, 7/10 RPGs will be lost to time, like tears in rain.

www.pcgamer.com

I looked into this a few days ago when I saw it posted somewhere else. Apparently Valve has said before that, while accounts are generally non-transferable, they are open to making exceptions on a case by case basis when you want to take over the account of a dead relative. So while they are correct in that you can't automatically transfer ownership of an account by putting it in your will, you might be able to transfer the account if you can prove your relative has died and they would have wanted you to have their account.

There was a lawsuit in Germany in 2013 (I think) where they tried to force Steam and other platforms to allow you to resell your games, which would've made inheriting games a lot easier as well presumably, but that obviously didn't go anywhere.

 

[Brian Boru]

you can't automatically transfer ownership of an account by putting it in your will

Has that been tested in court? Being in the EULA and ToS doesn't mean anything until a court agrees—people can't sign away their rights just because you'd like them to… in USA anyway, but I imagine in many countries.

 

[Pifanjr]

Has that been tested in court? Being in the EULA and ToS doesn't mean anything until a court agrees—people can't sign away their rights just because you'd like them to… in USA anyway, but I imagine in many countries.

There have been some cases around this, but the conclusion so far seems to be: "it's complicated".

 

[ZedClampet]

You can't take it with you, but you can't leave it for someone else either: Valve says you aren't allowed to bequeath a Steam account in a will

All these unfinished, 75% off, 7/10 RPGs will be lost to time, like tears in rain.

www.pcgamer.com

I looked into this a few days ago when I saw it posted somewhere else. Apparently Valve has said before that, while accounts are generally non-transferable, they are open to making exceptions on a case by case basis when you want to take over the account of a dead relative. So while they are correct in that you can't automatically transfer ownership of an account by putting it in your will, you might be able to transfer the account if you can prove your relative has died and they would have wanted you to have their account.

There was a lawsuit in Germany in 2013 (I think) where they tried to force Steam and other platforms to allow you to resell your games, which would've made inheriting games a lot easier as well presumably, but that obviously didn't go anywhere.

I won't be sending Steam a copy of my death certificate but I will be giving my kids my username and password, and we'll be in the family sharing plan. So far as Valve will know, I'll be immortal. I've already talked my wife through all of this and what to do when I move on to helping Valhalla FC win the championship.

 

[Zloth]

There have been some cases around this, but the conclusion so far seems to be: "it's complicated".

It would be. Having the Steam PW means whoever-it-is could also post as that user. They suddenly have possession all the guides, mods, and other community content the user made.

The games would be largely pointless. The vast majority of a games in any account are going to be old. If the person getting the account really wanted those games, they likely would have bought them already. There might be one or two, if the user was buying games right up until death. In most cases, though, I expect the set of games is going to be about as popular as grandma's fine china.

The only real value would be in the inventory items that could be re-sold on the Steam Market. For somebody like me, you would make far more money mowing somebody's lawn than transferring a bunch of cards worth no more than 5 cents each, but other people have things that are worth the time to log in.

P.S. @ZedClampet - so, when you're gone, we should ask Guido to update your mods?