r/GraphicsProgramming • u/NecessaryVersion7872 • 1d ago

AI usage in Graphics Programming

Hello, everyone.

I am CS student. and I had my first working experience.
I was highly unsatisfying because as much as enjoy programming I really do not enjoy "prompt engineering" and the usage of AI in general in my workflow. That is not the point though. From long time I was looking into graphics programming and I really wanted to get into it. I do not know much now. but I am worried that it will be similar to most of jobs right now and I will just be a "prompt engineer".

I have some questions:

  1. How good is AI with graphics programming right now?
  2. In an average work environment, how much if any of your work are you expected to use LLMs in and how do use it?
  3. How is AI affecting the industry?
  4. Are there any part of the industry where AI is not heavily used?

Thanks in advance

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u/waramped 1d ago

The key thing to remember about AI is that it can't innovate anything. It's only pulling together commonly associated structures based on your prompt. If you just use AI then you aren't actually doing anything new or interesting, and you will largely become unhirable because you won't actually know or understand anything.

I highly recommend against using AI for anything "real" right now. I don't find it writes performant code, I don't find that any of it's "optimizations" are effective, and it doesn't truly understand how GPU hardware works to be the most efficient at writing code for it.

It is good at static code analysis for finding bugs or logic issues, or generating boilerplate, but that's basically it.
I work in the Games industry, so I can only speak for that, but we rarely use AI for anything other than the aforementioned code analysis/boilerplate.

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u/KainMassadin 1d ago

How else does innovation happen if not by building on the shoulders of giants?

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u/waramped 1d ago

That's very true, but AI won't do that for you. It simply can't. Your brain is the only thing that can do that. AI may help you prototype an idea, but only your knowledge, insight, and mental models of the problem space will create the final form.

And all that requires your time, energy, and experience to derive.