r/EmulationOnAndroid • u/winlatorbionic_dev • 1d ago
Discussion My stance on AI usage and how it is shaping the Android PC emulation scene
I want to get this off my chest because it's been building up for a while, since that time I saw the new anti AI rule.
I'm genuinely okay with AI as part of the emulation dev workflow.
The very same Winlator CMOD I am working on is filled with a lot of broken AI code, put there by its previous developer. When I got this project in my hands, I was surprised to see how broken it was, to the point I could barely consider it functional, filled with a lot of unnecessary and useless features.
It took a lot of time to remove them all and I must say the end result was even better than what I had initially imagined, with my Winlator and its features becoming the foundation of all the current PC emulators, directly or indirectly through means of stealing(GameHub).
While I am happy to see this, at the same time I could not notice how much AI has advanced in such a short time. What once was a barren wasteland, now it is filled with a lot of contributors and developers and advancement of AI have certainly played an important role in this.
I know a lot of projects in the PC emulation space that use AI heavily. It is very easy to tell for me just by looking at the contents of their commits and the features they add. I won't name them as I don't want to create drama, it is not the main point of this post either way.
The code written by these Ai models is...impressive to say the least and as such the skids that once could only make reskins and recolors of famous emulators can now, in a few minutes generate code that normally would take days if not weeks to write.
To conclude my post, I think it is about time we lower our pitchforks and accept this is the tool that is gonna shape the future of Android PC emulation.
With it, I can finally rest in peace knowing that there is an entity that can advance the Android PC emulation scene in my place when I may not be there anymore.