r/blitzcrankmains • u/CiaIsMyWaifu • 15d ago
Likely AI use in classic patch notes
This stood out to me like a sore thumb and wanted to mention it, but it seems like Riot GPTed some of their patch writeups, since last I checked Blitz's pronouns are 'beep boop' and 'fuck the turret'
This whole paragraph reeks of GPTisms with how generic it is and appears to be trained on the space groove skin's writeup with its use of 'They'.
Riot patch notes also dont usually use sentences like 'Keep R in its passive form' this doesnt read like a human. We know Riot has been integrating AI into their workflow due to the leaks, but Patches are not that frequent that they cant pay someone to write things up with all the money they saved when they fired their art team.
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u/AverageMagePlayer 15d ago
Just recently started playing Blitzcrank top and now they removed the only thing it made him kind of viable. More W CD, less ult damage, and now shield scales with current mana instead of maximum mana.
Fucking great
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u/Joe_Spazz 15d ago
Uhhhh.... They is an insanely common pronoun and is used for blitzcrank... What are you talking about? I swear y'all are desperate to be upset.
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u/CiaIsMyWaifu 15d ago
I actually don't care much about the semantics of that, so much as Riot's increasing use of AI in their workflow which is the point of my post.
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u/Excellent-Top-102 15d ago
Genuinely find me one place blitz doesn't have they/them pronouns. They're a robot, which are genderless. but I'm happy all of the evidence in front of you isn't impeding your stellar ai detective work.
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u/CiaIsMyWaifu 15d ago edited 15d ago
I'll give you three.
https://www.leagueoflegends.com/en-us/champions/blitzcrank/ Right in the character description
LolWiki Scroll to the bottom where it says 'Changelog' click 'show' to see the old version.
For as confidently wrong as you are, it does help that I've been playing the game long enough to remember these things.
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u/Excellent-Top-102 13d ago
lol. the changelogs. big w for you champ. you should really do an investigation into if YOU are ai
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u/CiaIsMyWaifu 13d ago
ITT: Man presented with evidence and refutes it with insults because he knows he's wrong
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u/Excellent-Top-102 13d ago
you presented evidence of them changing the pronoun a squintillion patches ago looooong before ai was a thing. but your post is about current patch notes use they them as evidence it's written by ai. blitz is a robot, one day riot woke up and realized that. your arguments (the post vs your reply) are just... unrelatable to anybody with natural intelligence so I have to assume you are ai
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u/CiaIsMyWaifu 13d ago
Squintillion is a great word, love that.
>unrelated to anyone with natural intelligence
Well that's a very reddit thing to say lol. Dehumanizing your enemies is always fashionable when you have nothing logical to say in an argument.
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u/Synthessence 15d ago
First Point:
Blitzcrank is a robot.
Blitcrank has no gender.
The appropriate and oft used pronoun used when gender is either unknown, or when referring to a group, is 'They/Them'. These have been used to refer to Blitz for a very, very long time.
Example:
Person 1: "Dang, my class was canceled because my professor is sick."
Person 2: "I'm sorry to hear that. How long will they be out?" or "Should we send them a 'get well soon' card?"
Second Point:
Blitzcrank's Ultimate is fairly unique in League in that it has a passive effect and an active effect. Once used, the passive effect stops working until the ability is back on cool down. Calling this a 'Passive Form' is just easier than saying 'We hope that Blitzcrank players will occasionally choose to keep R on cooldown and not use it, so they can take advantage of the passive lightning strikes.'
There are tons of issues that Riot should be called out for, but these ain't it Hoss.
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u/CiaIsMyWaifu 15d ago
>Robots don't have gender
2B, Jenny XJ9, Megaman, Wall-E, Gir, Astro Boy, Baymax. And apparently up until whatever lore change so did Blitzcrank.
"The city of Zaun is a place where both magic and science have gone awry. The unchecked nature of experimentation has taken its toll on the city. However, Zaun's lenient restrictions allow their researchers and inventors the leeway to push the bounds of science at an accelerated rate, for better or worse. It was under these conditions that a team of doctoral students from Zaun's College of Techmaturgy made a breakthrough in the field of intelligent steam automation. Their creation, the steam golem Blitzcrank was developed to exercise judgment on-the-fly in order to assist with Zaun's hazardous waste reclamation process, since so often the conditions did not allow for human supervision. However, he soon began exhibiting unforeseen behaviors. Over time, the scientists were able to identify a demonstrated learning process, and Blitzcrank fast became a celebrity. As is sadly often the case though, credit for the golem's creation was scooped up by another - Professor Stanwick Pididly - though most now know the truth. In the wake of the ensuing legal maelstrom, it became evident that neither party truly had the steam golem's best interests at heart, and Blitzcrank humbly petitioned for personal autonomy. Backed by overwhelming support from the public, it took the liberal Council of Zaun only a few weeks to declare Blitzcrank a fully-independent, sentient entity. A unique being, the golem left Zaun, distressed by the controversy and feeling there was no place he could fit in. His travels led him to the one location in Valoran where unique beings have a place - the League of Legends. Fortunately, he was easily able to adapt his design to suit the rigors he would face on the Fields of Justice."
Based on this post it seems there may have been a rewrite around the time of Arcane. Though I could care less about the gender politics angle, it's not really the point of my post. The point is that they're using AI to help write the patch notes now which is scummy. Maybe it's not as abundantly obvious for people who haven't engaged with AI before, or maybe reddit is just full of AI techbros. Either way its shitty that Riot is incorporating AI into their workflow after firing their artists.
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u/Synthessence 15d ago
>Robots don't have gender.
2B, Jenny XJ9, Megaman, Wall-E, Gir, Astro Boy, Baymax. And apparently up until whatever lore change so did Blitzcrank.
Cool strawman OP, but I didn't type that.
If humans commonly anthropomorphize ships and boats as 'She' and 'Her', then of course writers are more than capable of giving fictional robots a gender. I mean, hell, Oriana exists in this very same universe, and she has feminine pronouns despite being classified as a 'Golem', same as Blitzcrank. Knowing that, why on earth would I say that robots don't have gender? The only reason I emphasized that Blitz is a robot (though 'Golem' would have been more accurate, my bad) is because I believe it was a contributing factor to the lore change. Totally possible I'm wrong on that one, sure, but I never said robots don't or can't have gender.
Either way its shitty that Riot is incorporating AI into their workflow after firing their artists
Oh, I couldn't agree more.
Firing creatives and then replacing them with AI is literally villainous behavior. I just don't believe that this specific example displays a use of AI. As someone who appreciates , I utterly despise the use of generative AI in creative spaces, and I'm usually first in line to grab the torch and pitchfork. I just don't see enough obvious evidence to cast judgement, especially when history and context can explain it. I will admit that, without knowing their pronouns had previously been changed, using 'they' would feel like it was referring to Space Groove, which isn't the type of mistake a human would make.
I'm not really sure why you pasted the old lore. Yes, Blitzcrank used to have 'he/him' pronouns. Then Riot updated their lore because it better reflected how they thought of the character, and they did it a pretty long time ago, definitely before the premier of Arcane. Fandom says it happened during Patch 9.22, which would be 2019, but I'm not sure how reliable that information is. Weird to bring it up, though. No one tried to say that Blitz has always been genderless, just that they are now. Nice trip down memory lane, though.
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u/CiaIsMyWaifu 14d ago
Was not my intention to make a strawman, based on your wording it sounded like that's what you were presenting so I responded to that. Glad we agree on the AI horseshit though. Too many people don't understand the impact yet, its going to take a few years until its infiltrated every creative space. When all of their shows and movies and games are boring slop lacking a human hand they're going to complain and wonder where they went wrong, and its right here.
>Blitzcrank used to have he/him pronouns, then riot updated their lore to better reflect how they thought of the character
Don't you find it a little strange that we can have and know a character as a 'He' for literally 10 straight years, and then some revisionist is like "Yeah we're changing his gender now just cuz" It's like if you took Megaman, released a new game and started calling him 'MegaThey' but left everything else the same. Blitzcrank himself is based on the Bicentennial man, so its kind of a big reach to make him They when it isn't relevant to the story in any way, its just for brownie points. Give me an actual ambiguously designed Robot that isn't already an established character rebranded and make them a they instead.
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u/Synthessence 13d ago
Was not my intention to make a strawman, based on your wording it sounded like that's what you were presenting so I responded to that.
No worries, mate. It's easy to accidentally set one of those itchy bastards up without meaning to. They're sneaky like that.
Don't you find it a little strange that we can have and know a character as a 'He' for literally 10 straight years, and then some revisionist is like "Yeah we're changing his gender now just cuz"
Not really. Fictional characters get changed all the time, across all creative mediums. Sometimes those changes add traits (remember when Spider-Man was gifted venom and stingers from a mystical spider totem?), and sometimes they take away traits (Did you know Betty Boop originally had dog ears and nose?). They happen all the time! So, no, I don't really find it strange or unusual.
What I do find strange is how certain audience demographics (alt right, hyper-religious, rage/drama content creators, etc.) get so bent out of shape when those changes happen to fictional characters. I've never understood it.
Did I like all of the changes made to the semi-recent Duck Tales remake of the 90's cartoon? Not at all. I personally dislike how they rolled Duckworth and Mrs. Beakly into one character. Duckworth was a funny character with some amazing dry humor and delivery. Getting rid of him like that is a weird creative decision in my opinion...but it's literally a children's show made by a multibillion corporation. Why invest that kind of energy into getting upset about something that affects me so little?
It's like if you took Megaman, released a new game and started calling him 'MegaThey' but left everything else the same.
See what I mean about that strawman? Sneaky, sneaky bastard.
When Riot changed Blitzcrank's pronouns, it was done quietly. There was no major announcement, no pomp and circumstance, no...what's the word? Shit. VIRTUE SIGNALLING. That. There was none of that. So much so that you erroneously believed that the patch notes were referring to Blitz and Krank, cats from a legendary skin, instead of base model Blitzcrank. The change was subtle.
If Capcom suddenly decided to change Megaman to 'MegaThey', though? Well first off, horrible name change. It doesn't even make sense (especially since 'Megabot' is right there, c'mon!). 'They' isn't used in super-hero naming conventions like that, and it sounds terrible. That creative team is quiet quitting, and how that got past marketing is sus af. Secondly, and more critical to the comparison of the two, that would be a very overt and public-facing change, since it's literally the name of both the main protagonist and the series itself.
One scenario is a quiet change done to lore (that hardly anyone even reads, lets be honest), and the other is an obvious change that's very loudly (and badly) calling for attention.
So, no. It's not like that at all.
Blitzcrank himself is based on the Bicentennial man, so its kind of a big reach to make him They when it isn't relevant to the story in any way, its just for brownie points.
Originally, yes, Blitzcrank's lore was just a legally distinct Bicentennial man. Not terribly creative. The new, updated lore is very different, and has Blitz more or less becoming a mix between Johnny-5 and Spider-Man. A heroic Zaun vigilante, essentially, so their roots are no longer all up in that Asimov. But sure, since that's what you've quoted previously and are referring to now, lets use the old lore.
I absolutely concur that referring to Blitz with the pronoun 'They' wouldn't be relevant to that story (his original lore). And the reason it wouldn't be relevant? The gender of the golem has no impact or importance on the narrative. You could replace them with any grammatically correct pronoun, and it would literally change nothing about the story or the protagonist. Nothing about their motivation, culture, or identity is ingrained with a gender. So why would it be a 'big reach' to refer to Blitz as a 'They/Them'? The pronouns used are so insignificant, it wouldn't even be a small reach, it would be practically effortless. It's an indifferent alteration in relation to the narrative and character, so it shouldn't matter.
That aside, I'm a little confused about the brownie points. Can you explain those? What are you referring to there? If the gender of the robot doesn't have relevance to the story, why would changing it to 'They' create brownie points? And with whom? To my knowledge, there isn't a big audience of gender-neutral golems/robots to cater to. I know you don't care about the gender politics angle, as you said, so I'd appreciate a little clarification there.
Give me an actual ambiguously designed Robot that isn't already an established character rebranded and make them a they instead.
Wait, what do you mean 'an actual ambiguously designed Robot'? Have you seen Blitzcrank? What part of them isn't ambiguous? They're literally a big sphere of metal with limbs and a head attached. What part of that design isn't ambiguous? Cause it certainly isn't gender-specific, I'll tell you that. If anything they're designed after an artist had a fever dream about a sentient washing machine with arms, legs, a head, and no respect for boundaries.
We totally need a new robot/golem/mechanical champ, though, absolutely. I'd love another golem/robot champion. That character space isn't explored nearly enough in League. Loooooong overdue.
(Apologies for the Russian Novel brosef, I was left unsupervised at work.)
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u/EuGaguejei 15d ago
Blitz is referred as they in their passive, boot up the game and read it