After a disappointing series of quarters following last years Series 200K GPU's, Nsidia's hardware benchmark promises are almost too good to be true. That's because they probably are. The upcoming series of graphics cards are currently due to ship December 20XX, almost a year later than scheduled, allegedly due to a chip shortage spurred by recent tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
But teardown images of the components are circulating on the web, and they're not the engineering samples handed out late last year. Instead Nsidia has used generative imagery to produce the material it says its latest line of graphics cards are specialised for.
Spokespersons for the company claim the renderings are completely accurate to the real deal - but that's obviously at least somewhat untrue, as the exploded teardowns make use of synthetcally generated artistic textures on the components.
Even optimistic enthusiasts made note that the photos, which are the first bit of material marketing the new line of cards, are no substitute for the real deal. Youtuber SlowMoLazers, whose youtube channel banner prominently features his Nsidia sponsored rig, tweeted "Team Green always give their best, but its time to stop playin' ".
Nsidia Interim CEO Twister Jones claimed "we've invested a lot into this new round of chips, why not show our confidence by marketing it with tools its designed for". Nsidia claims all the internal component imagery was generated exclusively using software running on the new generation of cards.
But many consumer hardware enthusasts are losing interest, the fact that no itemized benchmarks have been released for common software like Blender and Godot have left some of the most likely prospective customers for the cards feeling nervous and uncertain.
While undoubtedly a treat on the eyes, that we are 2 months away from the initial intended launch, and the teardowns aren't available raise a lot of red flags, especially for organisations that were keen to replace the aging 190Ks, top of the line four years ago but noticeably losing driver support in recent times.
Tensions are high in the office, as the team behind Swansungs June 20XX product launch campaign await the final call from management on the look of the next round of product advertisements.
At stake, three months worth of marketing materials to be redone. To make the deadlines thus far, the team has been using cutting edge synthetic generated art to blend the styles of some of their most prolific graphic designers past and present with contemporary artists. Last years October campaign included influences from renown artist Sargeant Jones, although the man himself received no compensation and denounced the campaign as "a pitiful ripoff for a mediocre gadget".
In a world where anyone can blend any style, the demand for tens of revisions and refinements is commonplace. Swansung's board of executives have cultivated a reputation for extreme specificity in recent times. Their belief, with AI-assisted art, any revisions should be routine work, justifying demands for quick turnarounds on full "reshoots". Some staff say they've had to start from scratch with completely new styles at least a dozen times for each quarters' product shoots this year alone.
Swansung VP of Marketing, Carl Loss, was quoted as saying "only the best will do, and now we have the tools to make the best in mere days, it's just business, we have to say competitive".
But the stress of rejection takes its toll on staff, who claim that the tools they are using aren't quite as pliable as they first seem. "You could get what you want, or equally something completely out of left field that takes hours to adjust".
Whereas before in house photographers, illustrators and graphic designers created the materials for the advertisements themselves, in recent years the board has demanded product shoots before the products have even rolled off the production line. 3D renders of products and digital scenes have been commonplace for years - but now designers have to make do with unfinished prototypes, and the scenes they're generating are entirely generated by prompt.
Getting the software to accurately generate a specific product is getting easier, but the many rounds of revisions mean that mistakes sometimes slip through, in October 20XX's campaign, internet commentators were amused by the fact that the design in the product shoot had two additional cameras that didn't make it into the production model.
Intense scrutiny has fallen upon the management of a local factory, after whistleblowers submitted evidence that workplace safety compliance documentation, including many photographs, had been synthetically generated. The forgeries included warning labels as well as railings that weren't actually present, among others.
In a spot inspection conducted by the Office of Health and Safety, more than 200 violations were found across the factory floor. Although the office receives thousands of reports a year, in this case what first alerted federal investigators to the scale of the potential issue was a report that claimed that some of the photographs included first aid stations from a manufacturer that hadn't been in business for almost 20 years. Officers conducting a review of the compliance documentation submitted then started noticing more and more irregularities, culminating in
The factory, which was opened in 20XX, employs almost 700 townspeople here, making it a backbone to the local economy. Federal investigators found that management here had communicated with local government officials to anticipate what compliances would be necessary, but hadn't actually followed through on making changes to the factory floor. $30 million dollars of the companies revenue in 20XX had been earmarked for these floor upgrades. A separate upcoming investigation will investigate if this is evidence of collusion or bribery.
At a press conference discussing the extent of the forgery, officials were quoted as saying "double digit amounts of spaces are just not real" - one official noted that in some photographs care had been taken to match the texture of synthetically generated floors to the real deal, but the same attention wasn't applied to ceilings. Beyond this, metallic objects like railings that would usually have a reflective surface, did not actually behave as one would expect.
One factory floor worker that agreed to be interviewed on the condition of anonymity said of the photographs "we saw em' (sic) side by side, it was nothing like how it really was, crazy,... its crazy". While these staff had received training on safety and compliance, few are made aware of the specifics of regulations because individual roles at the factory are compartmentalised - if it's not directly relevant to the job it is treated as extraneous.
This isn't the first time the factory has been in hot water either, in July 20XX, inspectors noticed that many staff were wearing personal protective equipment with expired filters. The modular filters on the PPE cost as little as three dollars each, and are meant to be replaced on a monthly basis, but some workers had reported using the same masks (and filters) for almost two years.