Not everyone was impressed when Nvidia showcased its DLSS 5 technology this week. The idea was that it would make faces more realistic using AI, but in most cases the result seemed to be more generic, reminiscent of a combination of AI-generated art and Snapchat filters, and worst of all, the result often doesn't even look like the original.
As we reported the other day, countless game companies took the opportunity to poke fun at DLSS 5 by posting comparisons with and without the technology. Kotaku wanted to know more about what developers themselves think about AI changing their work and interviewed a few on the subject.
Many chose to remain anonymous, but Cullen Dwyer, gameplay/tech design lead at Doinksoft, didn't mince words, saying:
"I think [DLSS 5] is the perfect example of the disconnect between what we as developers and gamers want and what the nasty freaks who are destroying the world and consolidating all wealth into the hands of the few using GPUs think we want.
"Presenting this technology under the DLSS name, thereby implying it will be the default and standard, is insulting and scary, and my immediate knee-jerk response is 'Thank fucking god I make 2D games.' If I have to make a 3D game, I'm writing a software renderer, fuck NVIDIA, fuck these ghouls."
Another developer described as a veteran with over 15 years of experience in AAA development said that it "feels like it is taking away some authorial intent from artists by making characters more glamorous and environments more detailed, with the overall look appearing to be less distinct or aesthetically cohesive than the original intent."
Yet another person who has worked on AAA games but now focuses on indies, Andi Santagata, says that the personality and intent of the design completely disappear:
"Aside from the obvious aesthetic issues, one of the other big problems is how DLSS 5 basically sucks the personality out of any artistic choice the devs have made by making average-out guesses of what it thinks things should look like. Like, you're never going to get the devs' actual intent with this thing turned on."
None of the developers Kotaku spoke with about the matter are positive, and many are, quite frankly, really negative, bordering on hostile. Developer Karla Ortiz has also weighed in on the matter via Bluesky, writing, among other things, that "Nvidia should shelve this one" and arguing that it is incredibly disrespectful because meticulous work to get everything perfect is undone when AI instead provides a completely different interpretation. She continues in a later post:
"Imagine being a dev team working for months/years to create characters whose carefully crafted features and body language tell specific stories, with the exact details and lighting setups that perfectly fit the story and the overall game world.
"For AI to ruin all that carefully balanced work 😭"
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Nvidia has so far stood its ground and maintains that the critics are wrong, and we'll have to wait and see what the future holds for DLSS 5 once the dust settles. We also have an article on the subject that you can read here.