Why I don’t use
Generative AI
to Create content for Goldanniyatech

Introduction

As a software developer with two decades of practice and a Computer Science instructor, I see generative AI as a gigantic and incredible topic in tech, yet an extremely polarizing one! On one hand, we have people hyping it up and claiming that everything will be fully automated by 2025 (even though we’re almost in 2027 already 😅); on the other hand, some people are quickly labeling “AI slop” at many new products coming out 🙃.

Obviously, there are valid concerns, and I will share a reasoned stance based on my knowledge, experience, and daily dev work and teaching.

First, I will explain why I’m creating my 3D action-adventure game Goldanniyatech entirely from scratch or ex nihilo. That is, why I’m making every single 3D asset from basic primitives (cubes, cylinders, etc.) and why I write all the code myself to ensure I always understand every single line in my codebase.

Second, I want to explain why generative AI is an incredible tool for learning, and truly revolutionary! Having started learning in 2004 with books, it’s pretty fascinating to learn today in a single day what used to take a week or a month. Spoiler alert, my stance is crystal-clear on that:

Third, I want to share my expertise, not only as a game developer, but also as a CS instructor, both for professors and students.

Benchmark Demo on Epic

Definitions

Before explaining more about my own work and game, I would like to define what means developing a software with generative AI. Because, to put it bluntly, I’ve seen all sort of made-up dfinitions completely out of touch with the reality or realms of software development, from “searching with Google is vibe-coding” (I literally saw that 🤡) to “asking a single question even for learning is vibe-coding” (WHAT?!?).

But there’s a crystal-clear, technical definition of what AI generated asset versus made-from-scratch asset mean.

Vibe Coding Definition

The definition of vibe coding is extremely simple: it’s the process of generating a code that is not understandable for the person who’s generating it, used to build a software without or by partially understanding the code.

In order to do any modification whatsoever, that person will have to ask LLMs again, because they cannot or can only partially modify the code.

Let me give an example with a simple Standard C++ class (not Unreal C++). For the sake of that definition, I use a module instead of the regular header and source files, so I can focus on the explanation.

In that specific case, a vibe-coded script means that the person doesn’t understand the syntax, and the meaning of each part of the script.

To roughly explain what deterministic compilers are doing, they subdividing the text into tokens, liek the smallest meaningful part of each sentence.

Understanding: the Key difference

Thus, vibe-coded is both based on the person AND the way of writing the code.

For instance, for some of my students, I can’t directly know if they actually wrote the code all by themselves. Maybe they used generative AI, maybe not.

I also never trust any AI checker, which in my opinion would never be reliable and would always have false positive (again, that’s my opinion).

Thus, the only way I can evaluate my students is by checking if they actually understand the code, if they know abou the syntax, from the basic things like the semicolon, the constructor and destructor keywords to more complex stuff like inheritance rules for accessors or pointers.

Why I don’t use Generative AI to Create content for Goldanniyatech

Introduction

Definitions

Vibe Coding Definition

Understanding: the Key difference

Why Making a Game from scratch?

Why I don’t use
Generative AI
to Create content for Goldanniyatech