Carmack being a prolific game developer doesn't mean that he has special insight into any other issue, like corporations economically exploiting children.

He may have a point, but him being 'legendary' doesn't make his arguments any better (or worse).

I think him being a father gives him special insight into that issue. Most fathers are keenly aware when their children are being taken advantage of.

Most parents on this HN thread seem to agree.

Quote from my friend, who is a mom:

> I'm honestly not a fan as a mom but it's a very fluid marketplace for games and gives people an opportunity to make their own video games and make money.

Given that this opportunity to make money scarcely exists in reality (it's equivalent to my opportunity to make money by starring in a Hollywood film as a random Seattle engineer), seems like parents don't really have a clue what's going on.

From my own experience from when I was a kid, it would seem to be true that parents don't have a clue what their children are actually exposed to on the internet, unless they take extreme and draconian measures.

Unfortunately, parents have a strong interest in protecting their image as that of a good parent, so it's rare for them to admit to not knowing such things.

> Roblox provides opportunities previously unavailable; it is up to the individuals to decide if they are worthwhile to invest time in.

Oh boy. I think we've all heard that many times before. Every exploitative business will use this line as its defense (see e.g. every controversy about employee/contractor status in the gig economy), so taken alone it isn't much of an argument.

For example, individuals can be mislead as to whether the opportunity is worthwhile to invest - with enough trickery and unsophisticated target group (e.g. Joe Random Uberdriver who never before calculated depreciation of their car), the business can exploit people for many years before they wisen up as a group.

I think it is important to note that its not the payment model itself that's the issue in those cases. It is instead the marketing that convinces people to engage with it in a way that is harmful / allows them to be exploited.

I would think contractor status can make sense for a small portion of people in the gig economy, but for a lot of people it would not.

> If the most legendary game developer of all time thinks Roblox is fine, are you sure he's mistaken?

FWIW, he's the CTO of a 30% app store trying to also break into the Roblox business (their Metaverse talk/Facebook Horizon).

So rather than Roblox only taking 40% and giving 30% to Apple, Facebook will potentially be in position to take the full 70% (or more due to getting children to pay for ad spend) of the child labor.

Carmack is a full time AI developer. He's working on AI in the most hardcore sense: aiming at full AGI. I've DM'ed with him for months about it. I was skeptical, and then his ideas turned out to be some of the most innovative I've seen.

When Carmack tweets something, it's because he believes what he's saying is true.

Searching for the most charitable interpretation of your argument, the only thing I can think of is "Maybe Carmack's view was contaminated by his time spent as CTO of Oculus." But he joined Oculus long before Facebook acquired it, and before the policies you mention. Carmack may be legendary, but he likely had no say in those policies.

> Carmack is a full time AI developer.

He's still simultaneously the CTO of Facebook's Oculus division, which runs their 30% app store and is building the Roblox-aesthetic Facebook Horizon "metaverse":

https://techcrunch.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/09/Facebook-W...

https://roadtovrlive-5ea0.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/...

https://roadtovrlive-5ea0.kxcdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/...

He's separated out his AI work as his own thing.

I don’t think Oculus is courting amateur kiddie devs.

> thinks Roblox is fine

I don't think he's claiming it's not exploitative behavior, but rather values the experience for the real world lessons.

Yeah, the only way I think Roblox could useful for kids is as a case study for how predatory game companies try to take your money.

For the creative side, there are other options. Play Minecraft, Trackmania and Super Mario Maker.

Aren’t most modern game developers notoriously exploitative of their adult workers? And, increasingly, their users of all ages? Perhaps a “legendary” game developer isn’t the best person to weigh in on whether Roblox is “fine” or exploitative.

> If the most legendary game developer of all time thinks Roblox is fine, are you sure he's mistaken?

Isn't this an argument from authority? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_authority

Furthermore, the video made the argument that Roblox tries to mislead kids into thinking they can make money. In other words, an individual might be wrong in thinking the opportunities are worth investing time in due to the manipulative practices of Roblox.

It is. And you're right to be skeptical of such arguments.

But such arguments also happen all the time. For example, if you join a company as a junior developer, most people would trust an existing senior developer.

I was about to write "I think it's fine to mislead kids into thinking they can make money." Then I reconsidered.

After reconsidering, I think it's fine to mislead kids into thinking they can make money. Lemonade stands and lawnmowing for neighbors are examples of this. They may make a little bit, but unless they're exceptionally lucky, no one would be under any illusions that it would become their full time profession.

But he is CTO of a company trying to become Roblox which takes half the money from kids the article/video talks about, and he's CTO of a 30% app store which takes the other half of the money from kids the article/video talks about.

Why does his C-programming ability have more weight than his obvious conflict of interest weighing in here? He may be being geniune, but since he works in this exact area, it is too tainted by that to take at face value or especially to take on authority.

Lawnmowing for a neighbor takes about an hour and earns maybe $10. Making a Roblox game takes perhaps 100 hours and is almost certainly going to result in earning $0 for everyone except the Roblox Corporation.

Ditto for learning the violin. (In this case, you learn Lua.)

But is it okay for a company to mislead kids into thinking that learning the violin will make them money?

An argument from authority isn't inherently a fallacy, as your own wikipedia article mentions.

But, like you, I do think it is inherently a flag that suggests other inputs are necessary. And that all opinions that solely reference the authority are equally lower weighted until additional inputs are found to match, or further negate.

> If the most legendary game developer of all time thinks Roblox is fine, are you sure he's mistaken?

If he was the most legendary game _designer_ sure, but in that area he hasn't been very relevant in a while, as a programmer I don't see what special insight he has.

He seems like a nice guy and he is obviously one of the best developer ever, but I don't get the near cult he has

I was surprised how grounded he was. It’s pretty much the opposite of a cult.

When you talk with him about a technical idea, you come away feeling that whatever Carmack said, it was plausible. So you start questioning your own assumptions.

I’ve learned to trust his thinking. It doesn’t mean that I don’t think for myself. Quite the opposite; I don’t think anyone else in the AI scene insisted to him that it was crucial to have a loss function.

But in matters like this, where he’s clearly given it more thought than I have (see tweet) and has more experience than I have (see son), I am perfectly content to outsource my thinking to him.

I’ll wager you $500 he’s right. (The problem with such wagers is that it’s hard to define the terms precisely. But, if it were possible to make it precise the way a mathematics formula is precise, I would happily bet you the $500.)

Off-topic, but has he (or anyone else) written more on getting rid of loss functions in ML?

I'm not really convinced by "John Carmack doesn't think it's a bad deal, so it's probably ok". He might very well be an incredibly talented game developer, but he also hasn't been in the position of being unknown in the space since the 90s. He also isn't an economist. However, I do think he makes a good point about accessibility. I also think that similar arguments are commonly used to defend MLM companies, which many rightfully still dislike.

I suspect he's more so talking from his position/experience as (1) a father, and (2) someone who launched his own (incredibly successful) business at a very young age.