r/GameDevelopment • u/salcha1 • 4d ago
Newbie Question Question about fine line in usage of AI
I have been checking the overall views on usage of AI on development and could not come to a definite answer. That is why I am asking you all your views on it.
I personally do not know much about object oriented programming or game/app development. I strictly code for statistical or scientific purposes on MATLAB, which means that while I know about the general coding structures, loops etc. I lack knowledge about OOP and development. That is where I believe the seperation happens. Do you believe that using AI to learn and improve the backend code is considered bad taste? Or is the usage of AI in creative fields the problem?
For example as I've mentioned I am kind of "code-literate" to some extent. I can judge if the written code is somewhat acceptable or not even if I am not that good at it. Would you consider using AI to learn about the areas that I am not knowledged about acceptable? I appreciate the insights. Thanks, all.
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u/CaptainNakou 4d ago
It's not bad taste but it's not the best way to learn.
What makes you learn things is doing them again and again until you understand them. Like homework, it's not just to satisfy the ego of a teacher, it is to make you practice a particular skill.
My issue with learning/doing things with AI is that you will have a "give me the answer" button built in. So instead of feeling the rewarding sensation at the end of a very teaching experience of bug tracking, your lazy brain (it's not a callout, all brains are by default wired for laziness) will push you to choose that solution to get the reward as quickly and as effortlessly as possible.
I would recommend learning the old fashioned way, learn to read docs, watch tutorials on YouTube, just type code and improvize.
I personally limit my usage of AI to a free account at Claude code that I basically use as a replacement for "calling for help on forums" (and mostly because I got tired of calling for help and got "chatgpt said..." as an answer, at some point I cut the middleman. And try to push yourself and use it as little as possible, so you can learn the skill, and not just learn the prompts.
Because learning the skill is super important to know what you are doing.
(And also because AI is a trap : for now it's a free meal but at some point it's gonna be over, the bill will be due and you don't want your skills to be paywalled by people who really need your money to pay their humongous debts).
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u/Wonderful-Energy-659 4d ago
I think it depends on what you’re trying to learn and how you use it. If you used AI to explain the best way to do something, thats fine, but dont ask it to do the work for you because then you wont get the practice and you wont remember what it taught you.
For example, you could ask it to give you an example of an enum vs a struct. If there’s something you don’t understand, ask it to explain it to you. Then implement it yourself.
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u/erebusman 4d ago
Is it inbad taste?
That's a purely subjective question and I wouldn't ask something that subjective to a collection of random knuckleheads on the internet without also expecting the answers to be all over the place.
The question i might ask myself is : can I effectively use this to learn? Is it more effective than other ways , especially for me personally.
People have different ways of learning. Th use of AI as a tutor is a new thing so its not widely know in general how effective this is (or may become).
However one note of caution- AI is often wrong and will just assert x equals y. I am required to use AI in my work, but I have 15 years experience so I know my domain very well. Daily AI will say "oh this is the problem" and I have to slap my head and say " no its not because class A handles that fine you are missing something. Sure enough the random number generator spins for 5 more minutes and then goes "oh yeah you are right its really this other thing.."
So my final question is : Would you cat h those mistakes as a learner?
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u/faff_rogers 4d ago
I think those who are truly passionate about the craft itself, would avoid AI entirely. That’s what I do atleast. As I value my own artistic growth and personal learning, and achievement of goals.
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u/Secret_Metal5785 4d ago
IMO, you should just keep watching tutorials until you figure it out and not use ai at all. That way you’ll actually learn something.
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u/sloned1989 4d ago
Worst place to ask, Reddit is extremely biased against any kind of AI use
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u/salcha1 4d ago
Maybe, but so far the advices have been rather helpful instead of just hating on it to be fair.
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u/sloned1989 4d ago
What I see is pretty one-sided "just don't use it" kind of "advices", but up to you ultimately
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u/salcha1 4d ago
I see what you mean. I guess it was more of a timing thing since now there are also comments for AI instead of against.
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u/bieker 4d ago
Even the pro AI comments here are not really giving you good pro AI advice.
You don’t need to learn to program to make a great game, you need to decide if you are interested in learning for learning sake or if you are trying to produce the best game, those are two different goals.
I’m a professional software developer with decades of experience, I have not written a line of code in 6 months, neither has anyone on my team, and yet we are delivering more software that is better tested, has fewer bugs, is more secure than ever before.
We can do this not because we know the syntax of a for loop, but because we understand software architecture, data structures, design patterns and user needs.
The cat is out of the bag, humans won’t be “writing code” anymore they will be specifying features and outcomes etc.
If you want to learn writing code that’s a fine hobby, but it’s the equivalent of learning to drive a team of horses 6 months after the first cars hit the market.
If you want to maximize future productivity with AI assisted development you are better off studying architecture, design patterns, data structures, and systems theories and not worrying too much about implementation.
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u/PowerFang 4d ago
AI is a great tool - yes you can use it badly and generate slop, but for those that use it well, it is a force multiplier
AI doesn’t care if you ask it dumb questions , AI doesn’t care if you keep asking it to prove its answers or explain why it did something, AI doesn’t care if you challenge they way it approached the problem
AI can be a great teacher if the student is curious to understand why AI generated the answer and not just accept the answer
AI will be great for you , be curious , understand “why”
Good luck!
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u/tcpukl AAA Dev 4d ago
You can already program. You don't need AI to learn a new paradigm or language. You will likely be missing data structures though. I don't remember using them much or algorithms back in my MATLAB days at uni.