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Its about people doing the seemingly impossible with technology, not technology doing whats possible with technology. If you use AI, you did nothing but ask it, and i could never be impressed by that.
And how would you vote in the competitions at demoparties? By tokens used?
Most parties strictly forbid the use of AI in production, but im afraid some people aren't honest enough to abide to that rule.
I suppose it would be interesting to have a random split, half use AI half don't, judging is blind and see what the outcome is
Using AI requires next to zero technical skill.
That's the key.
I think the problem is that you think of demoscene as just fancy videos, but it's actually about making a fancy video while dealing with serious constraints. In the classic demoscene of the 80s/90s, that constraint was processing power or RAM. In the modern day, processing power is immense, so people make the constraints artificial, such as putting a limit on your executable size.
Using AI to produce a demo within constraints is simply not impressive.
AI isn't a tool the way a debugger, compiler, or IDE are. It's more like outsourcing your work to someone else, then taking the credit for producing it.
I think the point is your not outputting anything. For crud apps that's fine but an activity where the whole point of it is to show off your technical skills it seems quite pointless.
If I can beat someone's technical skills with AI what are their technical skills worth? That's the question that a lot of people are struggling with right now.
If you can come up with a problem that a human can solve better without AI, then that's an interesting competition and the tools involved wouldn't end up mattering much.
Now if the contest is "who can develop the best/smallest/fastest app without AI" that's completely fine, there are similarly "who can cut the most grass with a scythe" competitions and everyone involved knows what they're signing up for and has a good time. Nothing wrong with that.
> If I can beat someone's technical skills with AI what are their technical skills worth? That's the question that a lot of people are struggling with right now.
I could turn up on a chess competition with a chess machine and beat my opponents with it, but that is not the point of chess competitions
Why would I care about vibe coded a demo when I could just ask Claude to make the same thing for me?
If you have two demos side by side, one AI and the other human, the human version is immediately more interesting because it showcases a high level of skill that you may aspire to achieve one day. The AI version is as forgettable as the person who prompted it, because it does not demonstrate that person's skill.
Same reason why we generally find weightlifters to be impressive even though machines have been able to out-lift anyone for thousands of years.
That said, I don't think most people dislike using it for tedious work or information searching. Similar to how most are still impressed by a lifter using a Smith machine to stabilize an absurd weight.
There will always be competitions that limit tool use, and competitions that don't. There are many examples that go either way.
Sceners are no strangers to imposing artificial constraints on themselves. Just look at high end 64k, 8k, 4k, and 256byte intro coding, there is no real reason for it other than the challenge. So I really hope this mindset can be applied to AI use as well.
Yes, but “doing” with AI is not actually doing it, is it? Yes, something gets done, but the end result was never the point of the demoscene. The finished product was merely the proof-of-work.
As with AI it's no different than delegating work to a group member. What counts is vision and execution.
If I delegate something to somebody else, I can’t then claim that I made it, because of my “vision and execution”.
I think many people are confused what's AI has given to them. An ability to be a boss. Something that used to be afforded to the rich. Now you can assemble a "team" and deliver whatever idea you have in mind without spending thousands or millions.
And most people have personal experience with how much a boss actually contributes.
This obviously intersected broadly with getting the most out of technology, but the main purpose was always (and still is) showing skillsets.
Yes demoscene is about doing the impossible with Technology, but its also about proving that your group is good at performing miracles with computers. Modern demos are still technically impressive, but art direction is much more important for a high-tier demo. It's not "we are doing this impressive thing" as much as it is "Look what WE are able to do with this technical trick we are harnessing". The group and people behind the demo is a brand and part of the experience.
My personal opinion is that if you think a 100% vibecoded demo is cool, you don't really "get" the demoscene. Nobody is impressed that you could vibecode a visually impressive demo. You aren't winning anyone's respect. Nobody will work to beat you (they will at best push Claude harder - its a question of money not talent). The point of the demoscene is to pull off impressive feats with computer hardware, and if you didn't even do it yourself, nobody cares, because it's not impressive.
I think few are going to hate you for outsourcing basic, repetitive work to an LLM. But if you go "hey claude make me a particle engine" it kind of misses the point?
Then again I'm not really a hardcore scener myself, with just a few mediocre prods, so maybe someone from Farbrausch, ASD, TBL, or others will show up and tell me why I am wrong.
I am just saying that AI is also something to harness, show it can help create something mindblowing. I am not saying that everyone should now go and type: "Make me a blob animation with phong reflections, put a bouncy scroll bar with 80s looking fonts and craft Ikari style chip tune and book tickets to the next demoscene party".
Because there is no natural right for you to be part of a scene. The right is earned, and every scene does well by keeping posers and mouthbreathers out.
Opinion ignored.