Exactly, as I don’t expect QA done by something that can’t think or feel to know what actually needs to be fixed. AI is a hallucination engine that just agrees rather than points out issues, in some cases it might call attention to non-issues and let critical bugs slip by. The ethical issues are still significant and play into the reason why I would refuse to buy any more Square Enix games going forward. I don’t trust them to walk this back, they are high on the AI lie. Human made games with humans handling the QA are the only games that I want.
Exactly, as I don’t expect QA done by something that can’t think or feel to know what actually needs to be fixed
That is a very small part of QA’s responsibility. Mostly it is about testing and identifying bugs that get triaged by management. The person running the tests is NOT responsible for deciding what can and can’t ship.
And, in that regard… this is actually a REALLY good use of “AI” (not so much generative). Imagine something like the old “A star algorithm plays mario” where it is about finding different paths to accomplish the same goal (e.g. a quest) and immediately having a lot of exactly what steps led to the anomaly for the purposes of building a reproducer.
Which actually DOES feel like a really good use case… at the cost of massive computational costs (so… “AI”).
That said: it also has all of the usual labor implications. But from a purely technical “make the best games” standpoint? Managers overseeing a rack that is running through the games 24/7 for bugs that they can then review and prioritize seems like a REALLY good move.
They’re already not paying for QA, so if anything this would be a net increase in resources allocated just to bring the machines onboard to do the task
I would initially tap the breaks on this, if for no other reason than “AI doing Q&A” reads more like corporate buzzwords than material policy. Big software developers should already have much of their Q&A automated, at least at the base layer. Further automating Q&A is generally a better business practice, as it helps catch more bugs in the Dev/Test cycle sooner.
Then consider that Q&A work by end users is historically a miserable and soul-sucking job. Converting those roles to debuggers and active devs does a lot for both the business and the workforce. When compared to “AI is doing the art” this is night-and-day, the very definition of the “Getting rid of the jobs people hate so they can do the work they love” that AI was supposed to deliver.
Finally, I’m forced to drag out the old “95% of AI implementations fail” statistic. Far more worried that they’re going to implement a model that costs a fortune and delivers mediocre results than that they’ll implement an AI driven round of end-user testing.
Turning Q&A over to the Roomba AI to find corners of the setting that snag the user would be Gud Aktuly.
If they can do their work more efficiently, they don’t get laid off.
It just means a better % of edge cases can get covered, even if you made QAs operate at 100x efficiency, they’d still have edge cases not getting covered.
And hire other people with the excess budget. Hell, depending on how badly these systems are implemented, you can end up with more staff supporting the testing system than you had doing the testing.
I was going to say, this is one job that actually makes sense to automate. I don’t know any QA testers personally, but I’ve heard plenty of accounts of them absolutely hating their jobs and getting laid off after the time crunch anyway.
They already have a really cool solution for that, which they talked about in their GDC talk.. I don’t think there’s any need to slap a glorified chatbot into this, it already seems to work well and have just the right amount of human input to be reliable, while also leaving the “testcase replay gruntwork” to a script instead of a human.
Ew, sounds like a great reason to not buy any Square Enix games…
Not even from an ethically standpoint. Color me shocked if these games are like, playable
Exactly, as I don’t expect QA done by something that can’t think or feel to know what actually needs to be fixed. AI is a hallucination engine that just agrees rather than points out issues, in some cases it might call attention to non-issues and let critical bugs slip by. The ethical issues are still significant and play into the reason why I would refuse to buy any more Square Enix games going forward. I don’t trust them to walk this back, they are high on the AI lie. Human made games with humans handling the QA are the only games that I want.
That is a very small part of QA’s responsibility. Mostly it is about testing and identifying bugs that get triaged by management. The person running the tests is NOT responsible for deciding what can and can’t ship.
And, in that regard… this is actually a REALLY good use of “AI” (not so much generative). Imagine something like the old “A star algorithm plays mario” where it is about finding different paths to accomplish the same goal (e.g. a quest) and immediately having a lot of exactly what steps led to the anomaly for the purposes of building a reproducer.
Which actually DOES feel like a really good use case… at the cost of massive computational costs (so… “AI”).
That said: it also has all of the usual labor implications. But from a purely technical “make the best games” standpoint? Managers overseeing a rack that is running through the games 24/7 for bugs that they can then review and prioritize seems like a REALLY good move.
They’re already not paying for QA, so if anything this would be a net increase in resources allocated just to bring the machines onboard to do the task
Yeah… that is the other aspect where… labor is already getting fucked over massively so it becomes a question of how many jobs are even going away.
I would initially tap the breaks on this, if for no other reason than “AI doing Q&A” reads more like corporate buzzwords than material policy. Big software developers should already have much of their Q&A automated, at least at the base layer. Further automating Q&A is generally a better business practice, as it helps catch more bugs in the Dev/Test cycle sooner.
Then consider that Q&A work by end users is historically a miserable and soul-sucking job. Converting those roles to debuggers and active devs does a lot for both the business and the workforce. When compared to “AI is doing the art” this is night-and-day, the very definition of the “Getting rid of the jobs people hate so they can do the work they love” that AI was supposed to deliver.
Finally, I’m forced to drag out the old “95% of AI implementations fail” statistic. Far more worried that they’re going to implement a model that costs a fortune and delivers mediocre results than that they’ll implement an AI driven round of end-user testing.
Turning Q&A over to the Roomba AI to find corners of the setting that snag the user would be Gud Aktuly.
Hahahahaha… on wait you’re serious. Let me laugh even harder.
They’re just gonna lay them off.
The thing about QA is the work is truly endless.
If they can do their work more efficiently, they don’t get laid off.
It just means a better % of edge cases can get covered, even if you made QAs operate at 100x efficiency, they’d still have edge cases not getting covered.
And hire other people with the excess budget. Hell, depending on how badly these systems are implemented, you can end up with more staff supporting the testing system than you had doing the testing.
I was going to say, this is one job that actually makes sense to automate. I don’t know any QA testers personally, but I’ve heard plenty of accounts of them absolutely hating their jobs and getting laid off after the time crunch anyway.
The repetition of “Q&A” reads like this comment was also outsourced to AI.
What does Q&A stand for?
Quality and assurance
Ugh. QA. Quality Assurance. Reflexively jamming that & because I am a bad AI.
Regardless, digital simulated users are going to be able to test faster, more exhaustively, and with more detailed diagnostics, than manual end users.
They already have a really cool solution for that, which they talked about in their GDC talk.. I don’t think there’s any need to slap a glorified chatbot into this, it already seems to work well and have just the right amount of human input to be reliable, while also leaving the “testcase replay gruntwork” to a script instead of a human.