Have you ever heard of the Jam Man of Silent Hill: Ascension? You are about to. Within the third episode of what began out as a probably attention-grabbing experiment and has rapidly snowballed into an entire catastrophe, Karl Johansen (a Norwegian farmer) runs into the Jam Man.
I am simply going to let this clip shared by VoidBurger on Twitter play out (you too can watch the complete episode right here. The Jam Man materialises at round 24:33).
Outdated: “It is bread”New: “I wish to make jams” pic.twitter.com/GzVTdKrqIzNovember 25, 2023
Silent Hill: Ascension has some stilted dialogue, however this can be a notably egregious instance. One which had the morbidly curious questioning if the entire thing was AI-generated: “This random NPC pops in, declares he is berry searching, says he is seen bizarre shit and doesn’t expound on it, gives no info, leaves for extra berries. Goodbye endlessly, BerryMan,” writes VoidBurger in a follow-up quote Tweet with over 13,000 likes.
The character’s precise title is “Forager”, or CrimsonRain722. Should you’re questioning why a Silent Hill character has numbers subsequent to their title, that is as a result of Forager/Jam Man/Berry Man is a cameo, a side-character gamers can spend “tickets” on. This will get their title plastered subsequent to them, and makes use of their customisable avatar as a mannequin. This is one other enjoyable instance courtesy of AnonyMooseXIV on Twitter.
Nothing will get me within the temper for horror like seeing a Twitch-style username and a subtitle telling me precisely what the factor I am taking a look at is, throughout a bizarre close-up of somebody’s bland Silent Hill mii. Very immersive. Anyway, Genvid’s CEO, Jacob Navrok, has mentioned that Jam Man isn’t the product of a deep studying algorithm, as per a statement on his Twitter.
“Each phrase in Ascension was written by actual individuals … throughout our 100,000+ phrases, zero are authored by LLMs or AI, and all are from devoted work of a gifted group,” says Navrok. I am form of prepared to consider him, solely as a result of I believe we’re all getting a contact too comfy with pointing at issues which might be downright unhealthy and saying ‘Ah, this should be AI-generated!’
However one thing is completely going incorrect with Silent Hill: Ascension’s scripting basically. One hefty tick within the ‘AI shlock’ column is how Jam Man says: “Now that you just point out it, I’ve seen some unusual issues out in these woods. You?” Earlier than instantly veering again into his newest hyperfixation, rowan berries.
I determine a few issues may’ve occurred right here. One, this scene was initially longer, however it was minimize for time. From a manufacturing standpoint, lots of errors have been made, however within the enhancing sales space that is completely the best transfer. If you must snip one thing, Jam Man’s waffling dialogue to justify the value of a cameo must be the very first thing on the chopping room ground.
This might additionally simply be a case of poor course given to the voice actor. That “You?” may have deliberately been one thing like ‘I’ve seen unusual issues in these woods, like you.’ Which might make sense. A Norwegian farmer within the woods with a gun is fairly unusual. Possibly the Forager was simply getting defensive, he was simply making an attempt to make his Jams.
Jam Man additionally mentions a “patch” of rowan berries. Rowan berries develop on timber, and when you may describe a gaggle of timber as a patch should you thought actual laborious about it, it is not likely the proper language, particularly if berries are your ardour. This would not be the primary time a author’s fumbled phrasing or not performed the analysis, so beneath some other circumstance it might be a non-event.
My level being, there are a thousand various things that might go incorrect earlier than AI will get concerned. The suspicion is warranted, although, contemplating how vocal Navrok has been about exploring AI previously. He goes into this in a separate post: The group examined AI-directed scenes, however “they do not have a correct sense of timing for TV”, they examined utilizing AI for chase scenes, however “they might simply get caught too typically.”
“We beforehand used AI to attempt to do chat moderation, however this failed,” which is why textual content chat is at present disabled, by the way in which. It was a trainwreck. “We’re utilizing AI to detect offensive names for account registration. That is working to an extent. Nonetheless not good, however higher than earlier options … We’re actively engaged on a brand new chat moderation answer, although simply your commonplace fashions obtainable for license.”
Once more, you’re free to use pinches of salt as a lot as you would like. I for one am completely satisfied to take Navrok at his phrase, although that is to not say a rogue author could not be utilizing LLMs on the sly. Nonetheless, typically a factor simply is not that good. Even when everybody’s making an attempt their damndest to make it so. One factor’s for sure: I’ll always remember Jam Man. His jams will all the time have a spot in my coronary heart.