Codex, Opus, Gemini try to build Counter Strike
(instantdb.com)283 points by stopachka 5 days ago
283 points by stopachka 5 days ago
Preetham is the author of the paper that defines this algorithm from 1999:
https://tommyhinks.com/2009/02/10/preetham-sky-model/
https://tommyhinks.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/1999_a_practical_analytic_model_for_daylight.pdf
Nobody is going to sue you for using their implementation of a skybox algorithm from 1999, give us break. It's so generic you can probably really only write it in a couple of different ways.
If youre worried about it you can always spend a day with Claude, ChatGPT and yourself looking for license infringements and clean up your code.
> Nobody is going to sue you for using their implementation of a skybox algorithm from 1999, give us break.
For personal use maybe not, but that's not the point, the point is it's spitting out licensed code and not even letting you know. Now if you're a business who hire exclusively "vibe" coders with zero experience with enterprise software, now you're on the hook and most likely will be sued.
It's taken from a threejs example: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/dev/examples/jsm/obj...
Seems fine given the project is already using threejs and so will have to include license info for it already.
> Seems like a massive attack surface for copyright trolls.
If you think any court system in the world has the capacity to deal with the sheer amount an LLM code can emit in an hour and audit for alleged copyright infringements ... I think we're trying to close the barn door now that the horse is already on a ship that has sailed.
No. A J Preetham: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/220720443_A_Practic...
If you're curious about the source, here's the snapshot:
Codex: https://github.com/stopachka/cscodex Gemini: https://github.com/stopachka/csgemini Claude: https://github.com/stopachka/csclaude
Please try again with Codex on High or Extra High. 5.1-Max nerfed it a bit if you don't use higher thinking.
I also noticed that AI agents commit many copyright infringements with the work of Mr Dijkstra.
Messrs Newton and Raphson would like to join this class-action.
Personally i find it absurd that code can be copyrighted at all.
Copyright is so-so. At the end of the day you can say that the complete work (not just snippets) is something copyrightable. But the most bananas thing for me is that one can patent the concept of one click purchasing. That's insane on many levels.
A lot of computer graphics algorithms are named after their authors
If only this particular regurgitation engine took a minute to check their work.
I always find it amazing that people are wiling to use AI beacuse of stuff like this, its been illegally trained on code that it does not have the license to use, and constantly willy nilly regurgitates entire snippets completely violating the terms of use
Edit:
https://github.com/vorg/pragmatic-pbr/blob/master/local_modu...
https://github.com/vorg/pragmatic-pbr/blob/master/local_modu...
This looks like where the source code was stolen from: this repository is unlicensed, and this is copyright infringement as a result
As discussed in this thread before you posted this comment, this code wasn't generated from an LLM at all, but simply included in a dependency: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46092904
Unlike your results which aren't exact match, or likely even a close enough match to be copyright infringment if the LLM was inspired by them (consider that copyright doesn't protect functional elements), an exact match of the code is here (and I assume from the comment I linked above this is a dependency of three.js, though I didn't track that down myself): https://github.com/GPUOpen-LibrariesAndSDKs/Cauldron/blob/b9...
Edit: Actually on further thought the date on the copyright header vs the git dates suggests the file in that repo was copied from somewhere else... anyways I think we can be reasonably confident that a version of this file is in the dependency. Again I didn't look at the three.js code myself to track down how its included.
If there's any copyright infringment here it would be because bog standard web tools fail to comply with the licenses of their dependencies and include a copy of the license, not because of LLMs. I think that is actually the case for many of them? I didn't investigate the to check if licenses are included in the network traffic.
conradev found likely the right version of the file here: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/55b4bbb7ef7e29b214b9...
I have been trained on code I don't have the license to use myself. I'm not like these Creators, who suck wisdom from the cosmos directly, apparently.
Sure. It's a problem that corporations run by more or less insane people are the ones monetizing and controlling access to these tools. But the solution to that can't be even more extended private monopolistic property claims to thought-stuff. Such claims are usually the way those crazy people got where they are.
You think in a world where Elsevier didn't just own the papers, but rights to a share in everything learned from them, would be better for you?
It's fascinating that people care very much about this when it's visual arts, but when it comes to code almost no one does.
E.g. the latest Anno game (117) received a lot of hate for using AI generated loading screen backgrounds, while I have never heard of a single person caring about code, which probably was heavily AI generated.
I believe it is MIT-licensed code from three.js: https://github.com/mrdoob/three.js/blob/55b4bbb7ef7e29b214b9...
"Claude - rewrite this apparently copyrighted code that can be found online here <http://...> in a way that makes it a unique implementation." <- probably will work.
Is it copyright infringement? It's a fundamental algorithm.
This makes me depressed. LLMs will take the most enjoyable part of my job and I will be stuck reviewing or fixing bugs in their "it-compiles" codebase.
There is a lot of data shuttling or shuffling in enterprise applications and if agents can write that part, so be it. I can spend more time on the harder business and technical problems that require creativity and working through the options and potential solutions. Even here, the speed to write multiple different experiments in parallel, is fantastic.
As for “it-compiles” that is nothing new. I have written code that I go back to later and wonder how it ever compiled. I have a process now of often letting the agent prototype and see if it works. Then go back and re-engineer it properly. Does doing it twice save time? Yeah, cause who’s to say my first take on the problem would have been correct and now I have something to look at and say it is definitely wrong or right when considering how to rebuild it for long term usage.
Same. I've resurrected side projects and done months of work on them overnight, getting to my true end goals. Creating software is fun. Wrangling a bunch of opinionated libraries and plumbing together systems with terrible ergonomics (i.e. webpack, maybe web development generally?) is bs work I'm glad to not have to do.
I have a slightly different take on it.
Creating software is indeed fun, but the most enjoyable aspects are the "a-ha" moments after you overcome a tricky problem, the confidence boost from creating something that works in an efficient and elegant way, and the dopamine hits associated with those events.
"AI" tools can alleviate some of the tedium of working on plumbing and repetitive tasks, but they also get rid of the dopamine hits. I get no enjoyment from running machine-generated code, having to review it, and more often than not having to troubleshoot and fix it myself.
To me, creating software is not as much about the destination, but about the journey. About the process itself. Yes, some of it is not enjoyable, but overall, there is much more I like about it than not.
Same. I've coded professionally my whole life. I've never enjoyed it as much as I'm doing now and I'm the most productive I've ever been.
I am sorry this made you feel depressed. I think there are some positives to consider too though:
1. More people that wanted to make games can.
Thanks to unreal engine, you don't need to be a Tim Sweeney level-expert to make compelling games. I see LLMs as another abstraction in the same spirit.
2. You get more leverage
The more abstractions you have, the more you can do with less. This means less bureaucracy, more of a chance to make _exactly_ what you wanted.
I understand how the craft changes underneath you, and that can feel depressing, but if we see it as tools, I think there's lots of good ahead.
Will they ? I don't know why -okay- but I am still suspicious about such claims. This is impressive, but I would be more convinced if the codebase was more complex, that is a toy and uninspiring implementation of a _very_ basic game, the most enjoyable part of your job surely lies in a place that is beyond this "pre-prototype" (almost tutorial-y) state.
I could be wrong of course, and it may be true that your work will change very soon. Maybe someone else has better examples to propose ?
You have agency. There is no invisible hand stopping you from continuing to do what you enjoy.
It's the same when I hear people complain about how complex new UI frameworks are. The web still runs perfectly well on simple html, CSS, and Javascript. There is not federal police force that will arrest you for not using React.
There is invisible hand, literally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
Yes, I can do it. In my free time. But that part of my job that was enjoyable? Poof. Not anymore. Can't compete, get on with times, be more productive.
I spend a 40% of my "alive" time in work. It's a massive downgrade.
> There is invisible hand, literally. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Invisible_hand
Companies preferring React over vanilla Javascript != you can't build sites with vanilla JavaScript anymore. Sites LITERALLY still work that way.
> I spend a 40% of my "alive" time in work. It's a massive downgrade.
This martydom with front-end frameworks is crazy to me. Guess what? You're a software developer. You actually have a lot more power tahn you think. And this "roll over and play dead while whining about every advancement in technology because you feel left behind" is exactly the reason you feel the way you do.
> That invisible hand exists and had always existed, it's the market.
I have never heard a client say "Man, glad you used React". Literally nobody cares what framework you use to build your site. Nobody.
If you didn't know any better you'd think all software developers are chained in a basement where they have absolutely no power to do anything but build React sites.
Wow, that makes me want to check it out more thoroughly (if I had the time)
I remember when CS Pro Mod was being made between the transition of CS 1.6, Source, the 1.6 community didn't want to move over to Source, before GO/CS2 came around.
Cool to see what's basically Quake1/doom style but this is a far fetch away from counter-strike. Although if netcode could be imagined and implemented I don't see why making a lower tier Counter-Strike wouldn't be doable. I'd play it if it were the quake style old-graphics version of CS that allowed for skill gaps.
Great article, love the nostalgic feeling.
Source had some insane rag doll. CS players weren’t ready for the physics and honestly, Valve spent a hell of a lot of effort to refine the physics for CS:GO to make it feel like CS1. Kudos to the dev teams.
I’d also love a Battle-bits CS version. (Battle-bits was a fun Battlefield low poly spoof).
I thought this would be about getting the actual Counter Strike to build, which is something they are also pretty good at. I had Claude debug an old C project of mine the other day and get it up and running.
Furthermore, if you have it sandboxed, you can also ask it to also install any necessary dependencies or toolchains, which is really nice.
Getting an old codebase working is something they are especially good at because it has regular, actionable feedback and it's clear when the tall is complete. Creating the "best" anything is much more open ended.
Here's the full video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fm-OoCWQlmc
The only time I spent outside of the video was to deploy to Vercel. I made a bunch of speedups in the video, but didn't cut anything. The total time was about 2 hours.
I mentioned it in the post, but there was definitely some hand holding towards the end, where I don't think a non-programmer would have succeeded
I'm impressed by this. You know in the beginning I was like hey why doesn't this look like counterstrike ? yeah I had the exepectation this things can one shot an industry leading computer game. Of course that's not yet possible. But still, this is pretty damn impressive for me.
In a way, they really condensed perfectly a lot of what's silly currently around AI.
> Codex, Opus, Gemini try to build Counter Strike
Even though the prompt mentions Counter Strike, it actually asks to build the basics of a generic FPS, and with a few iterations ends up with some sort of minecraft-looking generic FPS with code that would never make it to prod anywhere sane.
It's technically impressive. But functionally very dubious (and not at all anything remotely close to Counter-Strike besides "being an FPS").
Fitting.
It's not even technically impressive to anybody who has worked on first person shooters. It's literally trash.
For the benefit of those of us who don’t work in browser-based frontends, how bad could it be?
i mean it's the most bare-bones implementation without any engineering considerations
it's not something that would ever work industrially
people with code-generators they've made could do this just as fast as the AI except their generators could have engineering considerations built-in to them as well so it'd be even better
As expected, gemini's is the worst. Excuse my bluntness, but their benchmark to real-life performance discrepancy has just been audacious at best...
is it thought? other than a particulary odd choice of graphics it plays better than gpt-5 and whatever the hell that movement on claude is.
This is the kind of thing that's so impressive that if you're not an (experienced) SWE you think "man LLMs are the future, and I am making some major decisions based on this". But you look at the code, and it's essentially gluing three.js and some DB stuff together. There's no lobby, no real interaction logic, no physics apart from what you get from three.js, chatting, commands, map editing, game modes.
In other words, this is slop. We know these new models can generate slop images, text, videos, and code. Sometimes slop can be useful; maybe you can shape it into something useful, maybe you can slop a slopper. But we're learning it's not economical--this is some of the costliest slop we've ever made.
This is the job a junior developer may deliver in their first weeks at a new job, so this is the way it should be treated as: good intentions, not really good quality.
AI coding needs someone behind to steer it to do better, and in some cases, it does. But still hasn't left the junior phase, and while that doesn't happen, there's still the need for a good developer to deliver good results.
There's no serious company who would do anything equivalent to "hey Jr Dev make me a Counterstrike", so examples like these do way more harm than good, because they give the impression of superpowers but this is really just the best they can do.
They're not thinking or reasoning or understanding. It's just amazing autocomplete. Humans not being able to keep themselves from extrapolating or gold rushing doesn't change that.
> man LLMs are the future
They are. I know a lot of people don't want to admit this, but they are. They're getting better with each release.
> But we're learning it's not economical--this is some of the costliest slop we've ever made.
Huh? How on earth would you know whether my usage of LLM's has been worth it or not?
> Sometimes slop can be useful; maybe you can shape it into something useful
Man, I just spent the last 2 weeks with a CEO who got a Bolt.new subscription to be able to generate some high-level mocks ups for me to utilize that just saved us months of back and forth.
You know what's the best part? Those same mockups can be used to gather user feedback with a functioning UI without me having to spend weeks building it and it ending up wrong anyway.
Sometimes it irks me, but now I've sorta come to embrace devs like you. You're guaranteeing I have a job because you refuse to acknowledge the very obvious thing that's happening.
We're not disagreeing. Your best example is throwaway mocks: temporary slop, which these models are good at, but all the costs and externalities are hidden from you. They're not actually economical to use (even if you don't consider training etc as part of the cost, which is ridiculous as they're some of the costliest things humans have ever done).
This is very impressive. That said, 1st person shooters seem like the less interesting type of game to create with an LLM nowadays. I'd much rather see a large world mystery game, for example. Think something like "All Her Fault", where you're the mom and you show up to pick up your kid and the game starts there -- and you need to find your kid. I would fine a game like that something that we probably couldn't do well w/o AI, but now, I think it might be doable.
The initial goalpost was "create a bad clone of a famous game"?
how exactly are the goal posts moving?
the code and output is literal slop
it's not known how much editing and debugging was done by the team either
you could have done this in 2022 with not that much debugging as well
That's really cool, makes me want to try building a 3d game myself. I've only made 2d ones so far. Personally prefer the gemini version.
they forgot to ask gemini to implement a rootkit for anti-cheat!
Damn this is cool. Imagine an LLM trained extremely well on something like Unreal Engine.
A lot of the work done when making games in Unreal is done in the editor, not in source code.
Also, Unreal source code will be the very last thing LLMs understand. This is the most complex software ever.
There’s an algorithm called Nanite for automatically reducing the triangle count on geometry that’s far from the camera. As in there are not manually made separate level-of-detail models. The algorithm can modify models, reducing quality as they get farther.
This one algorithm is a tiny piece of the engine yet has a 1,000 page white paper.
Also, even when I don’t know how something works algorithmically, usually I at least have some intuition about where to start. I haven’t the slightest idea how to approach this problem.
No way. Take baby steps. Write an operating system first. Write a compiler first.
Here's a blog post[1] from last year regarding an open-source implementation of virtual geometry. The linked code is maybe a couple thousand lines. It's not something you'd write in an afternoon, but it's also not the towering monument of complexity that Epic Games pretends it is.
[1]: https://jms55.github.io/posts/2024-06-09-virtual-geometry-be...
Edit: I don't mean to sound disparaging - it's some genuinely cool algorithms. It's just that Epic is incentivized to hype it up, and so you get a huge paper and multiple talks that are designed to make it seem even more impressive.
Nice article-as-ad for their DB product. The product itself reminds me of MeteorJS, which seemed like it could take over in ~2016, and then... didn't.
Can't wait to see this at the Game Awards in a week or so.
These guys don't know what they don't know:
"Now let's make shots work. When I shoot, send the shot as a topic, and make it affect the target's HP. When the target HP goes to zero, they should die and respawn."
This is not how shooting is implemented in a competitive first person shooter.
"At the end, all models built real a multiplayer FPS, with zero code written by hand! That’s pretty darn cool."
If you don't understand how a multiplayer FPS works, how can you tell if the AI has actually created one for you or not?
I did not say what a multiplayer FPS is. I said "how a multiplayer FPS works".
There is a difference.
I tried to find some code that wasn't minified to assess the quality of this, and I found some shader code for the sky in the gemini version. The whole shader looks like it was regurgitated verbatim. This wouldn't hold up to licensing scrutiny. Here's a snippet from it:
Who's Preetham? Probably one of the copyright holders on this code.