Taste is the new programming language (w/ Astrocade CEO Amir Sadeghian) | AI Basics | This Week in Startups

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Build context-aware AI workflows using DeepMind models and orchestration tools with Google for Startups' new Startup technical guide on generative media. Get the guide here: https://goo.gle/technical_guide

Astrocade is building super-intelligence for the interactive world. Build the future of fun: https://www.astrocade.com/careers

Today's show:

*Making a video game once required a studio, an engine, and a team of five or more people working for six months. But with Astrocade, users just describe the game they'd like to play and share, and an AI assembles it from minutes, ready to publish to a TikTok-style feed.

Still, founder and CEO Amir Sadeghian tell us AI can't actually build a great game all on its own. The magic isn't just in the automation, but the user's creativity and good taste.

Amir demos how the app turns simple sentences and descriptions into full video games, explains why frontier models still regress to the mean rather than pushing boundaries, and unpacks how the game's human-in-the-loop workflow can turn even generic ideas into something original and fun.

Guest:

Amir Sadeghian on X: https://x.com/_amirabs

Astrocade: https://www.astrocade.com/

Relevant Links

Flappy Bird: https://flappybird.io/

Plants vs. Zombies: https://www.ea.com/ea-studios/popcap/plants-vs-zombies

MrBeast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MrBeast

Google's Nano Banana Pro: https://nanabananapro.com/

Timestamps:

0:00 Welcome to AI Basics, presented by Google Cloud

0:44 Amir Sadeghian, CEO of Astrocade joins

1:08 What is Astrocade and how does it work?