Nvidia’s DLSS 5 generative AI graphics reveal has… not gone well

Nvidia, the world’s largest company and the artist formerly known as ‘that graphics card lot’, has revealed a new technology which it calls an “AI-Powered breakthrough in visual fidelity for games”. And which we call “a nightmarish AI effect that makes characters in your games look like they were designed by a Google Gemini prompt”.

DLSS 5 is an impressive technical feat in many ways, as is detailed over at Nvidia’s newswire. It uses compatible Nvidia graphics cards to “infuse” onscreen pixels with photoreal lighting and materials. You can see it at work in Nvidia’s example clips. It appears to add a lot of new detail to game characters.

The problem with that is that the technology appears to be quite literally painting over the work of the creators who designed those characters. And the effect? Utterly homogenous. Resident Evil Requiem’s Grace Ashcroft looks like an AI girlfriend with an ozempic prescription. And Marika Boros takes on a remarkably similar complexion when DLSS 5 is applied to Starfield.

Context matters here, too. We’re all well aware of the AI bubble now. If you weren’t, then reading the first line of this story and being reminded that somehow a PC graphics card company has become bigger than Apple and Meta is a pretty handy reminder….