How to fight brilliant (and stupid) AI
Plus, an interview about gaming voice actors' year-long strike for AI protections
Image: Citizen Sleeper 2 (Jump Over the Age/Fellow Traveler)
Editor’s note: This week, I’m making all acts available to all listeners. The Patreon edition of the episode, however, is still early and ad-free. For context: My two guests participated on tight timelines and under special circumstances. And my essay was the conclusion of last week’s episode. As I finished the edit, I felt bad putting any of the acts behind the paywall. This won’t be the norm – frankly, I’ll need more paid subscribers before the end of the year if I want to keep this my full-time focus – but for this week, it felt like the right decision. For those who subscribe on Patreon, thank you so much for your support. I don’t take it for granted.
Hope you enjoy this behemoth!
This week on Post Games
Act 1: The five-year AI timeline that blew up my plans for the future
Act 2: What if AI is dumb, but we’re dumber
Bonus act: The year-long strike to protect video game voice actors from AI
An interview with Sarah Elmaleh, the chair of the SAG-AFTRA Interactive Media Agreement Negotiating Committee
Act 3: The news of the week
And another bonus act: An excerpt from the audiobook of Everything Must Go, Dorian Lynskey's non-fiction history of apocalyptic storytelling. The chapter: apocalyptic AI!
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Question for the comments
Next week's episode will give the video game industry and culture an annual physical. I'd love to hear your feelings on the current state of game culture, media, development, and any other aspect of the broader community!
Act 1: The five-year AI timeline that blew up my plans for the future
Everyone Is Using AI for Everything. Is That Bad? (NYTimes)
Hello darkness my old friend (X via Garbage Day)
Act 2: What if AI is dumb, but we’re dumber
AI users form relationships with technology (CBS News)
They Asked an AI Chatbot Questions. The Answers Sent Them Spiraling (NYTimes)
Your Brain on ChatGPT: Accumulation of Cognitive Debt when Using an AI Assistant for Essay Writing Task (MIT Media Lab)
Bonus Act
The voices of your favorite video game characters are going on strike (Polygon)
Hollywood actors' union Sag-Aftra ratifies strike-ending contract (BBC)
Videogame voice actors strike 'suspended' following agreement with game companies: 'All SAG-AFTRA members are instructed to return to work' (PCGamer)
Act 3: News of the Week
Bungie Indefinitely Delays Marathon To Address Negative Fan Feedback (Kotaku)
A 1-star review of Mind’s Eye (Eurogamer)
A tasty pasta salad recipe and also a MindsEye review (Digital Trends)
Bitmap Book's Hurt Me Plenty: Tge Ultimate Guide to First-Person Shooters 2003-2010
Everything Must Go
In January, author and journalist Dorian Lynskey published Everything Must Go, a non-fiction history of apocalyptic storytelling and how it evolved alongside science, politics, and culture over the past two centuries. An excerpt appears at the conclusion of this week's episode. You can find the full audiobook, ebook, and traditional book at your bookseller of choice.
Credit: Audio excerpted with permission of Penguin Random House Audio from EVERYTHING MUST GO by Dorian Lynskey, read by the author. © Dorian Lynskey ℗ 2025 Penguin Random House, LLC. All rights reserved. Buy here.
Just for Patreon:
All Patreon audio material has been included in this episode — thank you to Patrons for making that possible!
The free game of the week
The week in video game links
What else I’m enjoying
And more!!!
I'll often use YouTube from my work browser. I don't use it often, but I'll sometimes watch let's plays or reviews. It didn't take long for the algorithm to start feeding me the worst gamer takes of all time--the dudes complaining about women in video games, freaking out over DEI, and generally just hating video games that don't fit into their tiny little idea of what games are. You know who I'm talking about.
It's horrible.
However, there are some truly wonderful and joyful communities littered across the landscape of video game culture. I'm talking about you, The Worst Garbage Network of Podcasts.
I do think there are some big problems in games culture, but once you can find your pocket of peace, enjoying games and talking about them becomes much more fun.
Also, this episode really spoke to me!
You mentioned how AI can atrophy cognitive functions like learning and executing. I've been feeling that this week at work. I was tasked to use ChatGPT to generate some content for a site, and this week I needed to actually write some articles, and my brain was FRIED. I'm talking struggling with constructing-sentences type vibe.
Haven't gotten the chance to listen yet, but I checked out the "everybody is using AI" article/podcast transcription and couldn't help but notice that the two tech journalists, people that know these two tech journalists, and the fans of the tech journalists' podcast are all heavy AI users, meanwhile I only know a couple people who use it? Interesting! *eyeroll emoji I don't remember how to do on my work computer*