My Stance on AI, and Transperancy
Sunday, November 01, 2026
The world is changing very fast lately with advancing AI. So much so that... things I didn't even think about a short time ago, or thought did not matter... suddenly have stepped up more and should be addressed.
So I will start with that... I am, and always have been largely in favor of generative AI. It's my belief that it is the future, whether you complain about it or not. And that AI is first and foremost... A TOOL. Not a replacement. And as it advances, it should remain that way. It's a tool for artists to make better art, faster/easier. It's a tool for coders to make code faster/easier. In the hands of the unskilled... its purpose would be for training.
That is a fine idea to me. I'd think it should be for most. But... reality may not be that way. As AI progresses, novices are able to do more and more... and do so without learning anything other than crafting better prompts. I... don't know what to think beyond that, because its so hard to predict what the future holds. What's fast approaching is for AI to replace actual experienced coders as it was artists. In that, a novice can achieve something that would require someone with quality experience and skill. I don't care if some terminally online furry artist loses commission work. That's 99% of who complains. But... I don't want to see real, actual artists or coders losing work for something they have trained for. Like for me... if 26 years of experience means nothing compared to some 8 year old vibe coding... that's a clear indication that society is heading in a problematic direction. Humans still exist. They need jobs. Having valid jobs removed from society, as the human population continues to grow as it always has... with no firm plan for something like UBI? That's an issue. It's worrying.
Honestly... I do coding as a hobby. And... I think my hobby may not even be able to exist in the near future thanks to the governments failure to work on regulation and restraints for AI.
I have no clue what the future holds though. I still believe AI is the future whether we like it or not, and its thus in my best interest to learn it, adapt to it and get comfortable with it. So... I still use it when I feel the need.
That brings me to transparency. I have made no attempts to hide my use of AI. But... that's because my focus is on Discord for the community. Not this site or others. And... here I think I have never said anything about it. So... Now is the time.
CaVE and SFROM Tool have not been made with AI. They both predate it. And I have not used AI to assist with anything. That said... I have been thinking about using AI to assist with code clean up and a reduction of bugs in CaVE. But that's just a thought right now.
My DisplayEx mods were made by hand by me... originally. But I have used AI to assist with menial tasks once I saw that was an option. Not custom coding. Decomp clean up.
DisplayEx Tool was kind of originally made with AI. It was a test to learn about coding with AI at the time. To see what it could do, and where friction lies. I'm not great with terms now. Like Vibe Coding. I'm not sure if it applies... but after the initial AI assisted development of the proof of concept of the program, I learned how AI best fits into the process. A Senior/Junior developer, or boss/worker dynamic. I, the human, take the role of Senior dev and do all the planning work. I come up with the ideas, think how they should be coded, and just issue the grunt work task of typing it all out to the Junior, the AI. Occasionally stepping in to do work completely myself. This dynamic I found important as if the AI takes the steering wheel to much... the outcome turns to crap. THAT is what gives AI coding a bad name, because that's what novice devs do. They lack the skill to drive the project properly, and thus take more of a backseat.
I worked on some unreleased tools and projects with AI as I continued to figure out such a balance. Like for example, I did a web based project and... I am out of my depth with web stuff outside of basic HTML. I found myself in the backseat on that too much... and it was awful! I had to restart the project in Unity C#, and... it was much better from there. But ultimately I lost interest in the project.
Now... here's likely the project that would have the most friction with people in the audience who are insanely Anti-AI. The Full Unlock.
I remade the Full Unlock in C++. I used to know C++ back before like 2010's. I... always hated it. Some of it remained in my skill set, but not all of it. When I wanted to work on translating the Full Unlock from .ips patches to code... I was rusty. So... I figured the best way to help shake off rust was to use AI as a sort of instructor. Check my work. Clean up my code. Etc. And as things progressed, if I didn't understand the path to achieve the goal of a task, I could let the AI do it. I would do things myself when I could too. Purely, because I needed to know I could do it. I needed to shake off the rust of my C++ skill. This came to a particular head with the ExHiROM support.
During development of that feature, my assumed confusion and lack of skill was leading me to rely on the AI a lot. And... it was going in circles. It was not until I halted things, stepped up, wracked my brain and tried my own ideas... that it finally worked! That was a good feeling! Not only that I achieved the goal of ExHiROM support, something that was deemed impossible before. But that I did it! Not the AI. Me. My understanding and skill were better than I thought!
Since then though... It's a hit or miss mix on how much AI is used for the other features. The majority of the time, ideas and development of features are with me at the helm. But sometimes... I'm a little out of my depth and the AI is the one I am learning from. I can't begin to state a distinct line between where the AI's work begins and mine ends. The Full Unlock project... probably personifies my believes of AI being a tool. It takes the lead a little when I need to learn... But yes. I DO learn. And otherwise, it just does the grunt work when I lay out the plans in detail.
If you are one of those excessively anti-AI people that have to signal your virtue every chance you get... then you may consider the Full Unlock as a mod that's not for you. Sorry. That's the only way it will exist going forward. Don't like it? Don't use the stuff outside of the basic SFROM sig check patching I guess. That was basically done 100% by me. Maybe adjusted or organized by AI? But the original work of it was all me, trying to refresh myself on C++. Manual grunt work by me logging all the addresses and such too.
If it matters and helps though... remember this. The entire point of my coding hobby... isn't the outcome of the project. It's... TO HAVE FUN CODING! I have fun coding things myself. I have fun learning new things and skills. That is the opposite of the vibe coders that most anti-AI prudes crusade about. Those coders care only about the end goal and the attention. Not the work. Yea. My coding skill and knowledge goes up when I use AI. I rely on it less and less outside of menial grunt work. That personifies the progression of development I have had with the project, as I learn more over time, actually understand it, and use that new level of understanding and skill as spring board to push to the next level. Learning and doing is fun to me! That's why I do this as a hobby!
Going forward... Future projects will likely be similar to the Full Unlock. I am an experience coder. But I use AI as a tool to take on tedious tasks, or identify issues and solutions to problems without being stuck scratching my head too long. CaVE might see AI use at some point in helping clean it up... since my code can be quite sloppy at times. But there are no firm plans for that right now.
Consider this your warning, or my disclosure/disclaimer if you need that. I felt this post was warranted as I see people crying about such disclosures, or signaling their virtue on the topic more and more.
