characters look worse, like AI slop filters were added over their faces and bodies

In many cases that's true, but not in all cases. Makes sense considering that no games have had this technology to be used in their art direction, no wonder it looks like ass. If your only citation for this take is that one Resident Evil screenshot that made headlines then I suggest you look at the world deeper than just headlines and clickbait engagement farming articles.

creative vision of the people making the game is bastardized behind these “enhancements” altering the look and feel of the game.

I guess all these mods that revamp textures or do ENB shaders or lighting adjustments are "bastardizing" the creative vision too. I would argue that even running a game on low-medium settings for the sake of framerate is bastardizing the creative vision, as artists worked very hard to produce high quality assets meant to be seen in it's highest fidelity. Do you consider running games on lower graphics settings a bastardization? Didn't think so.

higher bar for entry for performance requirements and still getting poor performance if you do bite the bullet for a more expensive setup

Again, same with every new generation of graphics tech. It's always a higher entry for performance, it's always in the hands of the few first, and poor performance is also, again, not the fault of AI but bad optimization.

a lot of these games aren’t that good, don’t get me wrong a few are, but having to buy extra equipment and push your PC to get marginally better graphics to play an “okay” game isn’t gonna make people jump for joy.

There have always been games that are shit but pushed for graphics, in damn near every console generation since PS2. It's a unique selling point to have shiny graphics. The good games that last on good gameplay and good optimization for good performance are lauded, and for good reason. AI won't change that, if anything make even cooler stuff like HL2 did with it's latest tech. You know what does make shitty games? Situations such as "Studio with best selling game lays off 40% of its developers." And before you say "But they're doing that because AI," again AAA studios have always been doing that since way before, in other industries too, since Thomas Edison. All the EA and Ubisoft controversy? Way before AI. The problem is capitalism, and execs at the top making a buck at the expense of good quality products with planned obsolescence and cheaping out their workers. This is a problem in every industry, AI or not. But these stupid companies that are investing entirely into AI at the expense of good art, writing, and gameplay (whether it uses AI or not) will always fail because it's slop. It's the Charlie and the Chocolate Factory "Machines stole my toothpaste job" stuff, old man yelling at cloud behaviour. It's the exact same logic that blames immigrants for stealing our jobs, without even looking at the bosses who are firing workers and replacing them with exploited immigrants. Is the problem immigration or over exploitation? I view things more towards the latter.

I love AI for what it could be, but we're not ready for it under capitalism. Cognitive offload is only a concern for people who don't respect learning and understanding to begin with, which under capitalism most people don't, being stupid and thoughtless gets you rich these days. I say get them out in the open, let them fail, they deserve it. Smart people don't fall for it. Capitalism is using AI to destroy itself for short-term gains and it's happening right before our eyes - "Capitalists will sell you the rope to hang them with," and all that.

What does it represent to you? Once upon a time the idea of robots or machinery doing all our work for us, it was a dream. Only under capitalism is that a bad thing, because then people won't be forced to work for unedible money. AI could be a great thing. Under capitalism though, it represents something potentially terrible.

Tell me something, if AI technology applied to protein folds helps us discover a cure for cancer or alzheimers, would you refuse the treatment "because it's AI"? Then apply that to any other technological shortcut that created our modern medicine, like MRIs and CT scans or EKG's. Are those great technologies, or "a ton of lost jobs that humans could have done"? "CT scans are bad because it requires less brain surgeons," or "EKG's are bad because a human could be doing those measurements but have been cheaped out by technology." "What about the cognitive offloading from pocket calculators?" (A real argument made at the time, btw.) Did you know that in Victorian times it was someones job to walk down the streets ringing a bell to wake people up in the morning? People were paid to knock on peoples windows so that they could wake up at a certain time. Are you mad at alarm clocks for taking their jobs? How is AI any different but just on a bigger scale? What are the problems that AI implementation and shortcuts that DOESN'T have to do with relying on a paycheck to live? Is relying on a paycheck to live the only way a society can function? Or does capitalism depend on that, and anything that shakes that is potentially dangerous to our capitalist-centric society?

Capitalism can't handle AI. That's not AIs fault, that's capitalisms shortcomings and inherent unsustainability. Everything wrong with AI is just capitalism, I have yet to see evidence prove me otherwise.

What an utterly constructive addition to the conversation, cheers.