eurogamer.net

towerful, do gaming w Baldur's Gate 3 actors reveal the darker side of success fuelled by AI voice cloning

nasty things people do with AI [trigger warning]> “I went on to this stream because somebody gave me a heads up and I went on and heard my own voice reading rape porn. That’s the level of stuff we’ve had to deal with since this game came out and it’s been horrible, honestly.” Amelia Tyler.

I cannot imagine going into a stream of someone playing a game you have poured your heart and soul into for years, and hear you own voice reading stuff like that

Edit: fixing spoiler tag.

Coelacanth,
@Coelacanth@feddit.nu avatar

Don’t know if just me, but this spoiler tag doesn’t work on either Sync nor Boost.

Rai,

Works in Voyager now! Didn’t used to, but was updated recently.

towerful,

I use jerboa and it is working (I used the toolbar to generate it, but had to fix it because my mobile keyboard is a massive PITA for any corrections and I haven’t had time to find something new).
Anyway, looks like sync and boost are not lemmy-markdown-compatible

maxxxxpower,

Working for Connect on Android.

onlinepersona, do gaming w GAME staff discovered zero hours contracts move via mass Microsoft Teams calls

That’s legal? Can a contract be changed willy nilly in the US like that? In the EU it’s a least a month’s notice and in some EU countries even 3 months notice!

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

Maggoty,

Lmao, most workers in the US don’t have a contract at all. They’re under a system called “At Will Employment” that was part of breaking the Unions. They can quit at any time, but they can also be fired at any time, for nearly anything. (It can’t be discrimination, but it could be the color of the shirt you wore that day)

So yeah the terms of your employment in the US can change at any time.

r00ty,
@r00ty@kbin.life avatar

Read the article. It's the UK (which still has most EU employment law active). Now, I don't think it's illegal to do what they're doing. Effectively, I can bet I know exactly how they're framing this, and it'll be totally legal.

The calls were almost certainly initiating the redundancy process. That is, technically EVERYONE (probably below management) is being made redundant. As part of the redundancy process, an employer is expected to attempt to find internal opportunities for the employees to be culled, and this new position is what they are likely offering as said opportunity. I suspect this is working around a bit of a grey area in redundancy law. But, I don't think they're falling foul of any law. But, I'm not a legal expert.

So, at the end of the required redundancy period (it varies based on employment duration) they will either be let go (with whatever statutory redundancy pay they're owed) or re-employed under the new zero hours contract.

Personally, I think this has the potential to blow up in their face a bit. It's not allowed in the UK to employ someone on a zero-hour contract and not allow them to work elsewhere. Such a clause in a contract may be ignored. Now, this could well mean they say "Oh we need you on Wednesday" and you say "Well, actually I've already agreed a shift elsewhere on Wednesday" and there's really not much they can do about it. I also hope the people working there just move on.

The worst thing that can happen is that the parent company benefits from this. It'll just make other retail companies do the same in a race to the bottom.

onlinepersona,
r00ty,
@r00ty@kbin.life avatar

Well, in the first line they reference an article from yesterday which made it very clear.

I'm not too sure why the response was so defensive. That point made up a miniscule part of my overall comment and wasn't even close to the primary subject matter.

onlinepersona,

“You can’t read”

Anyway, what I talking about? Oh yes…

https://mockingspongebob.org/why_are_you_so_defensive

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

r00ty,
@r00ty@kbin.life avatar

OK buddy, I'll leave you to your online persona :)

AndrasKrigare,

Are we really not going to talk about how the website is EURO gamer?

onlinepersona,

Yes, EURO gamer only reports on European companies and European games and European hardware. They’d never report on US companies ever.

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0

AndrasKrigare,

Saw that response coming. I’m just saying maybe don’t assume everything is American before asking a question like that, and especially don’t do it for a website with “euro” in the name

GlenTheFrog,
@GlenTheFrog@lemmy.ml avatar

Totally off topic but what is that “Anti Commercial AI thingy” that you have linked? Is it to prevent AI scraping?

onlinepersona,

That’s precisely it. Maybe I should add a blurb about that 🤔 (for later)

Anti Commercial AI thingyCC BY-NC-SA 4.0Inserted with a keystroke running this script on linux with X11 bash #!/usr/bin/env nix-shell #!nix-shell -i bash --packages xautomation xclip sleep 0.2 (echo '::: spoiler Anti Commercial AI thingy [CC BY-NC-SA 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) Inserted with a keystroke running this script on linux with X11 bash’ cat “$0” echo ':::') | xclip -selection clipboard xte “keydown Control_L” “key V” “keyup Control_L”

xantoxis, do gaming w GAME staff discovered zero hours contracts move via mass Microsoft Teams calls

This headline is almost incoherent, I wish they’d stop teaching journalists about newspaper shorthand headlines. We’re not limited to broadleaf sized headlines any more, just put some fucking words in there so it makes sense.

penquin,

I have a very hard time understanding these headlines, but I normally blame it on my English (English isn’t my first language), but good to know that that’s not the case. Reading them twice or more doesn’t help. I just give up and let it go.

M500,

It’s honestly a problem for native speakers. So many times headlines make no sense or are extremely misleading.

Alexstarfire,

I read the article and it’s not really any more clear.

SendMePhotos,

Yes, even just the first paragraph makes sense.

Staff members were told of GAME’s impending change to force staff onto zero hours contracts, first reported yesterday by Eurogamer, via mass video calls held on Microsoft Teams.

steakmeoutt,

Are you paid to craft distraction posts? The headline and article are clear but your post (clearly upvoted by bots) is now the point of discussion (likely some responders are also the same bot accounts).

How much do you earn in service of corporate interests?

alvvayson,

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy, but it is definitely odd.

In my opinion, the headline is very clear.

Chozo,
@Chozo@fedia.io avatar

Who do you think is paying random Lemmy users to complain about headlines on news articles? Seriously, who do you imagine is behind such a ridiculous conspiracy? Where is the value in such activity?

Also, upvotes are public. We can see who upvoted him, and it wasn't bots.

steakmeoutt,

How can you possibly know if an account is or is not a bot in this age of LLMs?

And the value is where it’s always been - astroturfing.

Chozo,
@Chozo@fedia.io avatar

How can you possibly know if an account is or is not a bot in this age of LLMs?

You tell us, you're the one saying the other guy was "clearly upvoted by bots", you show us how you came to that conclusion, chief.

steakmeoutt,
Chozo,
@Chozo@fedia.io avatar

"Bots exist" isn't an answer to "prove that post was upvoted by bots".

Quit being obnoxious, my guy.

steakmeoutt,

Feel free to come up with your own thesis for the behaviour then. Why do you think a bunch of discussion has formed around a falsehood where all the parties of that discussion seem to agree and yet none have discussed the subject matter at all.

Chozo,
@Chozo@fedia.io avatar

Feel free to come up with your own thesis for the behaviour then.

People upvoted him because they agree with him. Not that hard to figure out.

Why do you think a bunch of discussion has formed around a falsehood where all the parties of that discussion seem to agree and yet none have discussed the subject matter at all.

Because the headline is trash, hence the conversation at hand.

Carighan, (edited )
@Carighan@lemmy.world avatar

I got to ask, has reading comprehension really come down that much in the recent decades?

Could the title be expanded to be more prosaic? Sure!
But at the same time, it’s intuitively and entirely understandable.

Who? GAME staff
What? Discovered something
What exactly? That they’re moving to zero hour contracts
How? Via a mass Microsoft Teams call

Or, written together, the title up above. And that’s a completely normal sentence structure, it’s essentially how your brain should expect a sentence conveying that information to be structured, or the final part would be at the start (“Via a mass microsoft teams call…”).

otter,

Sure, but while I understand the sentence structure I still don’t know what it’s talking about without the article itself

I think the point they are making is that we use these short titles even though we don’t need to. It might be correct, but why not make better use of the medium

MonkderDritte, (edited )

See? I understood it that GAME staff discovered that zero hours contracts (whatever that is) move via team calls (wherever, and however that happens).

So much to reading comprehension. That title is trash.

xantoxis,

I just find it weird that you felt compelled to post an explanation for something that is “intuitively and entirely understandable”. It’s almost as if you knew that lots of people couldn’t understand it.

bisby, (edited )

What exactly? That they’re moving to zero hour contracts

This isnt what the headline says though. “Discovered zero hour contracts” isnt how normal people speak. I have no clue if a mass teams call means they discovered some people were already on contracts, or that they were moving everyone to them, or some people, or (not knowing what a zero hour contract is) that the company has new contracts with game publishers.

You took your own understanding of the headline and even in your “its simple” added details that weren’t there originally.

kindenough, do gaming w GAME staff discovered zero hours contracts move via mass Microsoft Teams calls
@kindenough@kbin.social avatar

Ah, modern slavery. Zero hours contracts should be banned. Anyone thinking about offering you one, should be poofed out of existence

allywilson,

should be poofed out of existence

This means something very specific in the UK.

Maestro,

You can't just drop that and then not explain....

NotAViciousCyborg,

deleted_by_author

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  • 9point6,

    Not just to death

    Out of existence

    metaStatic,

    ya not a poofta are ya Bruce?

    ForgotAboutDre,

    As a noun or adjective it would be a derogatory term for gay men. As a verb most people would recognise it as disappeared in the UK. There plenty of other terms for the verb.

    ulkesh,
    @ulkesh@beehaw.org avatar

    Pretty sure they’re referring to “poof” which is a derogatory term for a gay man in British vernacular. In any case, the context in which it was used clearly wasn’t intended as the derogatory term, rather to mean “suddenly”.

    Nougat,

    It's a bad thing, to be sure, but it's just not anything like slavery.

    metaStatic,

    yeah, people treated their slaves much better.

    Nougat,

    Did I miss a /s? Because at face value, that's utter bollocks (since we're talking about the UK).

    essell,

    Depends on the terms!

    I work four jobs, all freelance, all paid sufficiently and all zero hour.

    Suits me really well, as the work comes and goes between the different roles I’ve always got something to do.

    It’s the exploitation of them that’s the problem. It’s the way they’re used to make people disposable and bypass employment laws that’s the problem.

    ForgotAboutDre,

    There is legitimate use cases for a zero hour contract. The vast majority don’t fit it.

    If the zero hour contract minimum wage was £50 per hour, then it would be appropriate. This would still allow it to be useful to hire consultant, semi- retired experts and contractors and use PAYE, no additional companies, accountants etc. Very efficient and would only apply to employees with some power in the relationship with the business.

    However, it’s used to exploit minimum or low wage staff. The company takes all the flexibility it offers and uses it to bully the employee into accepting the hours the business wants. They do this by treating to cut hours if the employee doesn’t agree. This makes it difficult to have multiple jobs to make up the hours.

    jordanlund, do gaming w GAME staff discovered zero hours contracts move via mass Microsoft Teams calls
    @jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

    American here, what’s a “zero hour contract”?

    You’re an employee but not guaranteed to work any hours at all?

    tabris,

    Yep, exactly that. There are laws that say if you work more than a certain number of hours per week, you’re entitled to benefits like pension, paid holiday, etc. Zero hours contracts let companies get away with not providing those, as they’ll keep each individual staff member below the required hours, because there’s no guarantee of a minimum number of hours in their contract.

    It’s absolutely atrocious, but the government spins it to make it sound like a benefit by saying you have extra time, you can lead a flexible life. What it means in reality for most people is that they need multiple jobs and still get no benefits that a full time job would provide.

    jordanlund,
    @jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

    In America it’s called “Full Time” vs “Part Time”.

    Full Time is generally 35 to 40 hours, benefits like sick pay, vacation pay, 401K, etc.

    Anything under 35 is Part Time, no benefits. But you can still be guaranteed hours up to 35, generally 20.

    I don’t know of anyone here who would take a 0 hour job, unless it were a “no show job”. But that’s a different deal. ;)

    en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-show_job

    tabris,

    We have part-time jobs as well, but those usually come with a minimum number of hours. Zero hours contracts were brought in to bypass those rules. Since zero hours contracts came in, part-time contracts practically disappeared.

    9point6, do gaming w GAME staff discovered zero hours contracts move via mass Microsoft Teams calls

    I mean, I worked at GAME over a couple of decades ago as a teenager and they were using zero hour (and near-zero) contracts back then.

    Surprising they ever stopped tbh, awful company even before Mike Ashley got it from the bargain bin.

    HumanBehaviorByBjork, do gaming w GAME staff discovered zero hours contracts move via mass Microsoft Teams calls
    @HumanBehaviorByBjork@hexbear.net avatar

    gamers rise up

    UKFilmNerd, do gaming w GAME staff told to expect redundancies, as most workers move to zero hours contracts
    @UKFilmNerd@feddit.uk avatar

    These are just overpriced toy stores now. More toys than games. They haven’t been a real gaming store for ages, in my opinion.

    bungle_in_the_jungle, do gaming w GAME staff told to expect redundancies, as most workers move to zero hours contracts

    This store has already died a thousand deaths it seems. Could’ve sworn they were all closing down ages ago but you still find them everywhere.

    breadsmasher,
    @breadsmasher@lemmy.world avatar

    my local one closed recently. Looks like they were carrying tons of preowned, and new games etc. But had a large section for board games, trading card games. At one point had warhammer.

    Seems they tried to branch out and failed. iirc they said they’re no longer accepting trade ins?

    haywire7,
    @haywire7@lemmy.world avatar

    Yup, killed the one reason I had to go in there apart from the Pokémon codes.

    Merch is overpriced, they won’t part-ex anymore. They closed stores and moved to crappy corners of sports direct and what not. It’s dying. It’ll be an online portal where kids send links to grandparents at Christmas soon.

    millie, do gaming w Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift

    It seems like they’re not just profiting on children, they’re setting up a system in which work is exchanged for a roblox company scrip and then charging them that same scrip to advertise their game. They also take a cut. So if a game gets a little traction but doesn’t immediately blow up, there’s a built in incentive to put the money right back into roblox.

    Shady. Is it not enough to brush uncomfortably close to child labor laws with an army of child modders creating your value? You really have to turn around and loop them into an exploitative model where you get paid like 3 times before they see a cent? And even then they hold their money hostage until the kid manages to save $1000 rather than spending it on ads and more roblox stuff, that or they need a premium subscription so roblox gets paid 4 times.

    Like, it’s illegal to have child labor so therefore it’s a foregone conclusion that whatever you’re doing won’t be child labor, so you might as well do some crazy shit that an employer could never get away with?

    Honestly tracks with modern-day capitalism.

    That said, like, it would have been cool to learn lua scripting when I was 12. Maybe if it weren’t for the obsession with constant growth we could have the nice thing without the shitty thing that supports it.

    Can we eventually learn this lesson please and move on as a species? It’s literally the problem in every news story.

    deathmetal27, do gaming w Ex-Sega studio Relic hit by fresh layoffs following sale

    Does anyone know who this “mysterious investor” who bought them out is?

    magnetosphere, do gaming w Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift
    @magnetosphere@fedia.io avatar

    If it was a “gift”, Roblox would be nonprofit and the children would get a larger cut. What they’re doing is called, by any reasonable standard, exploitation

    lowleveldata, do gaming w Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift

    Nobody is forced to play their game, right? Why is this news

    GammaGames,

    People Make Games released a decent overview of the child labor exploitation a few years ago

    Unsurprisingly, people aren’t okay with that behavior. It don’t help that Roblox tried to pressure them into removing the video

    lowleveldata,

    So is the issue about Roblox taking too much cut? Or that they shouldn’t be allowing children to cash out at all because that’s child labor?

    MudMan,

    I do find it weird how much of a fuss the second video makes about the pseudo-NFT marketplace in Roblox considering Steam has had every single one of those features in place for a while.

    These are good videos, as usual for PMG, and they do highlight relevant issues, but I'm sometimes frustrated by these things in that they mix genuine, dealbreaking concerns with things they flag for this example but not when they surface elsewhere and with things that are legitimately either standard practice, long term gaming-wide concerns or... just fine, actually.

    Which is not me defending Roblox, to be clear. Roblox is a mess and it's crazy how successful they are at keeping a low profile about some of the stuff they do compared to other successful games and platforms and relative to their size. For an American company it's insane how little they are on the spotlight for some of this stuff. But "some" is doing a lot of work in that sentence. These videos run the gamut.

    thingsiplay,

    It’s not because one is forced to play their games, it’s because of abusing childs (in terms of work and money). And this is newsworthy, as we speak about over 200 million users, with a lot of them being underage.

    teawrecks, do gaming w Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift

    “The children yearn for the mines!”

    AFallingAnvil,
    @AFallingAnvil@lemmy.ca avatar

    “Work will set you free.”

    Admetus, do gaming w Roblox Studio boss: children making money on the platform isn't exploitation, it's a gift

    I saw the video about a year ago, the one posted by gamma on this thread and the general summary I got from the video is that:

    1. For the immense time and expertise these children are putting into the game, they get a very small cut. And their social life and education will probably suffer so hey!
    2. A job comes with security and rights. These children get no rights as they are not on contract.
    3. There are predators on Roblox which the company is overlooking (as they are making huge games there, like the Sonic the Hedgehog Roblox game).

    It’s a very grey area that isn’t regulated well.

    princessnorah,
    @princessnorah@lemmy.blahaj.zone avatar

    Was it the People Make Games video? Because there was a follow up to it. Am going to link both for anyone that wants a deep dive into how scummy Roblox is:

    youtube.com/watch?v=_gXlauRB1EQ

    youtube.com/watch?v=vTMF6xEiAaY

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