Same tools, same professionals, some of them create Avengers with the goal of making people lose 2 hours of their life. Others create The Trump Show to give people food of thoughts.

Same tools, same professionals, some of them create yet another version of Counter Strike, while others think in changing the world.

I am not saying Avenger devs are losing their time.
But it is true, that Westworld project is more than a Packman Game in just any sense.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-7988645/TV-uses-virtual-reality-reunite-mother-7-year-old-daughter-died-2016.html

So true. Ordinary people making extraordinary things happen. You can change the world too, at least the virtual world of Appalachia with the help of easy Fallout 76 bottle caps.

@webzeboo It could be “extraordinary people making ordinary things”.

My post is about the decision what to do with the one's own talents.

Looks like they're commercial projects. The decisions are by the executives about what makes money.

The linked article describing “reuniting”" the mother with adeceased daughter wasn't done to break the mother's heart, it was part of a TV reality show, likely chosen out from a large list of reality show options because focus groups showed they could get the best ad revenue and sponsorship.

@frob You are correct! The nearly complete majority of people used Westworld project for pure evil.

If you work for somebody, not only that somebody will direct your effort toward the making of money, but that somebody will destroy your work and talents.
You could start working for somebody thinking in great things, but finally it all will become about manipulating the price of the shares of a company. Tweeting about general AI/Mars, makes more money and is easier than actually programming general AI and going to Mars. Planned obsolescence and keeping a product in secret for years until the right commercial moment comes is a lesser bad. The worst is somebody to tell you: “I am not paying you to work on AI for real, I am paying you to talk about AI on TV. If you keep asking me to spend money for your AI, I will fire you and hire a sci-fi writer to talk about AI on TV”. Lying on twitter is worse than working on The Manhattan Project. At least Manhattan project led to nuclear power plants. Manipulating the prices of the shares of a company by pretending progress, will give humanity nothing at all.

Personally, I don't expect great things to come out from a big enterprise, but rather from the basement of a non-popular developer. Informatics is one of the few things that allow for a single person to work on something big from his basement. All you need is a regular computer. The smallest investment in a tech project possible.
In a university in one of the most developed countries of the world, I was given an F for doing it too well. I was explained that I should have spoken to the manager first and tell him that I could make it better. Then the manager speaks to the client and tries to sell that extra functionality. If the client does not pay for that extra functionality, I am forbidden to add it to he project, even if adding paths to further expanding of the project is the most normal thing to do, if the client did not pay for it, and you do it, they penalize you with an F… Many people think money stimulate progress…. I can argue about that… Definitively, I expect more to come from a non-popular developer in his basement than from a huge tech company.

The project in the link is not much technologically speaking, but still, it is transcedental.

What the devs who did that, will do next? Will they be inspired to create their own TV show now? Will they get back to their routines? Or they will keep working on the idea.

NikiTo said:

If you work for somebody, not only that somebody will direct your effort toward the making of money, but that somebody will destroy your work and talents. … it all will become about manipulating the price of the shares of a company … Manipulating the prices of the shares … give humanity nothing at all.

I wouldn't go nearly that far.

Yes, businesses need to make money or they cannot stay in business. Many choices are about balancing potential costs, potential risks, and potential rewards.

I suspect that relatively few are actively subverting or actively committing fraud. Many will give morality a lesser consideration over profit, but that's partly because people have different morals. (For example, the porn game industry and the gambling industry has different morals than conservative children game industry.) Actively choosing to commit fraud to gain money is a different issue.

NikiTo said:

In a university in one of the most developed countries of the world, I was given an F for doing it too well. I was explained that I should have spoken to the manager first and tell him that I could make it better. Then the manager speaks to the client and tries to sell that extra functionality. If the client does not pay for that extra functionality, I am forbidden to add it to he project, even if adding paths to further expanding of the project is the most normal thing to do, if the client did not pay for it, and you do it, they penalize you with an F… Many people think money stimulate progress…. I can argue about that… Definitively, I expect more to come from a non-popular developer in his basement than from a huge tech company.

That's unrelated, I think.

Knowing the education system as well as I do, and not knowing the specifics of your situation, I'd recommend students ALWAYS communicate more with their teachers.

I've seen people go off the rails doing something completely unrelated to the concept being taught, then being angry when they are failed for it. You may have created an amazing UI for a program, but if the assignment was to explore using hash tables, the hash tables are the only part of the program being graded.

The same is true in business. If your client has specific needs and the contract says you're supposed to do a specific thing, deviation from the contract isn't appropriate. There is a tremendous difference between the mantra “under-promise and over-deliver”, versus giving the client something that wasn't agreed upon.

@frob Claiming that Sophia The Robot has a genuine sense of humor is an intentional SCAM in my own opinion.

Sometimes the SCAM is more subtle. Sometimes they say that a robot is partially controlled by AI and partially by an operator. And they don't specify in what proportion.

Schools are of different kinds. They say, somewhere over the rainbow, there are some schools, teachers will help you with your projects, because if you patent something, the school will make money out of it and the teacher who helped you will make money too. This is what they say….

Money is positive if employed well. When a game dev says in an interview he needs 40mln for the dev of the game and 40mln for marketing, something in the system is not going well…

In the end, true science rules over money. If your enemy over the iron curtain achieves real military tech and all you have is void marketing, that enemy will just come and take all of your money.

NikiTo said:
When a game dev says in an interview he needs 40mln for the dev of the game and 40mln for marketing, something in the system is not going well…

Actually, in modern major projects development costs roughly equal the marketing costs, which are also roughly equal to the combined pre-production and post-launch costs. While I cannot give numbers, I have seen plenty of budgets where after the entire project funding was settled, development was a third, marketing was a third, and other costs were a third. Development roughly equals marketing costs.

Actual numbers are trade secrets, but sometimes they come out. GTA 5 developers widely stated they spent 265M in development and marketing combined, and also said they spent 137 on development alone, giving a roughly 50% split. Bethesda had similar statements about Skyrim at launch, with a 100M figure, again with a roughly even split going to development and marketing. And one of many articles, stating “As a rule of thumb, you can say that an triple-A game’s marketing budget is approximately equal to 75 percent-100 percent of its development cost. … In mobile, it's not uncommon to hear savvy shops set aside three to 10 times the development budget for marketing”.

Some people feel marketing is all lies and scams. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But for major games, data says the money is worth spending.

@frob Would it work for Coronavirus?

We will invest 200mln in the development of a vaccine and other 200mln in a study about the best selling packaging for the vaccine. I wonder what color would sell better a vaccine to people. What brand name would be the best? We need 20mln more for the brand name study.

When a female sells bathtub water to males, marketing makes sense, but if somebody wants to do something transcedental, i don't see how marketing fits.

China, Russia and USA are on the lead of the AI development, whoever achieves it first wins and takes it all. Marketing can help a person become a billionaire and even a god for his fans. But i doubt Sophia The Robot can help the AI development more than a movie about AI from the 80s helps.

If somebody wants to become rich, marketing is the best way to go. Then you die and your children fight between them for your millions.

It depends of the goals of a person.

If the goal of somebody is money, why would he program at all? Gamers on YT are much richer than programmers of games. Do the millions a game wins in the first week, end up in hands of game programmers? Or these millions end up mostly in hands of investors? If money is the goal of a person, he should uninstall Visual Studio and install a trading program.

Why program for money? Why not trade instead? Programming makes me suffer. I don't enjoy hunting bugs 99% of the time. But for some crazy reason i prefer Visual Studio over Trading programs.

NikiTo said:
Programming makes me suffer. I don't enjoy hunting bugs 99% of the time.

I recommend you find a job you enjoy a little more. All jobs involve work, but most people find a job that is fulfilling for themselves. There are millions of different jobs out there if you aren't satisfied with this one.