This “critical breakthrough” imbues everything with a special touch that has become synonymous with AI-generated art. It’s like motion smoothing, if motion smoothing went a step further and changed people’s faces – and it makes everything look the same.
It is important to note that the next time you play Requiem On a PC, Grace won’t suddenly look like she was plucked from the Grok Imagine demo. DLSS 5 won’t launch until the fall, it will require some robust hardware to operate, and it’s an optional feature. But it’s a technology that is being pioneered by one of the world’s most valuable companies, backed by major video game developers. And they all seem content to associate their games with a particular aesthetic.
In a statement on Nvidia’s announcement blog, Bethesda boss Todd Howard said that “with DLSS 5 the artistic style and details shine without retreating from the traditional limitations of real-time rendering,” while noting that the feature will be available in the United States. Starfield. Jun Takeuchi, executive producer of many of the biggest blockbusters including Capcom Requiemsaid that “DLSS 5 represents another important step forward in advancing visual fidelity, helping players become even more immersed in the world. resident Evil“
It’s a bit strange to hear that some of the most influential names in games have decided that it’s a good idea for Nvidia to replace their carefully crafted characters with generic AI-powered versions. In a follow-up tweet, Bethesda said that what we’re seeing is a “very early look”, and that the studio’s “art teams will further adjust the lighting and final effects to fit the way we think works best for each game.” So perhaps the version of DLSS 5 that becomes available in the autumn will look very different.
but what can we do Are Looking now indicates a bleak future. AI has infiltrated almost every aspect of our lives, and one of the most frustrating ways is on an aesthetic level. AI-generated faces are an amalgamation of countless images, which are used to bring out a kind of symmetrical ideal. It is usually easy to recognize due to some distinctive signs: unnaturally smooth skin and uniform features, always happy eyes, smiling mouth with full lips, perfectly styled hair that looks synthetic, small nose and HDR-style lighting that highlights every outline. In themselves, these may be distinctive facial features, but when every AI face has all or most of them, we start wandering into the uncanny valley.
That’s why so many people reacted so strongly to the faces in Nvidia’s announcement: They don’t just look bad, they look just like everything else. The same aesthetic is prevalent everywhere from Instagram feeds to YouTube thumbnails, and it’s making its way from social networks to more traditional forms of entertainment and culture. I haven’t seen any good AI-generated movies yet, and yet they keep coming, and you can recognize them from a screen. Nvidia’s new technology is the most visible example of that aesthetically intrusive game.
There are several reasons why AI disrupting an artist’s work is particularly troublesome for games. The industry has been devastated by some very costly wrong bets and layoffs and studio closures due to the post-pandemic recession, so the prospects for carelessly replacing human work aren’t good. This is also a medium where a subset of the audience has some very backward ideas about what a normal human woman looks like, so making existing characters somehow more generic and more cartoonish through AI tools is extremely problematic.
The face of Grace presented through DLSS 5 is an early look at what things could look like if adoption becomes more widespread. And if it does, being a good friend might mean turning it off, like motion smoothing, when you go on a trip.
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