architect turned #XR-chitect crafting virtual worlds & the spectacles within @agilelens | #UE5 authorized trainer & course creator @AlexCTraining
Manhattan, NY
Joined February 2010
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Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
i used to be the person who explained why ai cost what it cost.
then i started seeing usage we couldn't explain.
since then i've seen people steal inference for personal use, for distillation, and for offensive security.
inference is valuable. someone pays for every request. steal access and someone else pays for yours.
but i think the appeal goes beyond free compute. using someone else's account puts distance between you and the activity. the account owner is visible. the person behind the requests can be harder to identify.
my research points to a billion dollars in lost revenue.
i've found sophisticated operations with their own payment systems, gateways, account theft operations and marketing. some have 100+ employees.
shell companies in the uk and the virgin islands. servers in russia and china. operators in the us and elsewhere. some advertise openly on x and other platforms. some have vc funding.
that's where trying to explain an ai bill took me: researching the businesses behind stolen inference.
who is actually using the inference you're paying for?
give me a follow if you want to learn how to secure yours. i'll share practical tips on protecting it from llm hacking, key theft, session theft, subscription piggybacking and more.
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
Unreal Engine has become such a headache to use. It really is a motivation killer.
I spent most of my time correcting the engines mess ups of imports, scale issues and other crap that seems half implemented.
Honestly ready to just drop this engine at this point.
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
If Unreal is vibecoded, then no point in using & pay roaylities to Epic. Just ask AI to generate you an entire new Engine (youtube prove it kinda works), and don't forget to ask Claude to "inspire" from UE5. This way you've your own free Unreal-like!
scr: xitter.cf/TimSweeneyEpic/status/…
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
> But what worries me is that people can become so satisfied with the work itself that they start mistaking that satisfaction for having created something good.
The largest peril in Game Development. Some of the best games I've made weren't "fun" to make.
Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto, the acclaimed designer behind Super Mario and Zelda, has explained why he believes generative AI won’t make human creativity obsolete.
"There will always be a role left for us to play."
videogameschronicle.com/news…
A lot of folks ask me how my wife & kids feel about me traveling so much for @AgileLens. It can be hard! When possible I try to bundle trips together. I’m always home for important moments. I try to be useful around the house.
And KEY: support my wife having her own adventures !
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
Memories.
We love doing things, because we just love the process of creating it. We love putting in the effort, going through the pain, and seeing the result of it being built in realtime.
When I opened UDK about 16-17 years ago, this was the rush of feeling I had. It was pure bliss.
And where are we now but in a joyless world rushing to create content for sake of content, making machines make more content so you can do nothing but be a mannequin at the end of the day - lifeless, joyless and idle.
No artist or creator will want to give away that process of making art or creating. Let them who wants to pop pills and claim skills do so. Let them who wants to stand on shoulders of giants and call themselves tall do so. Nobody will care because nobody will want soul-less experiences.
Vibe your way to 50K.
The 2026 Epic AI MegaJam begins Nov 12: epic.gm/epic-ai-megajam-2026
ALT Red pill or blue pill meme from The Matrix, about choosing between two paths. Two open hands are held out on a black background. The red pill is labeled “Ship awesome games in a weekend.” The blue pill is labeled “Wait months to prototype.”
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
I keep thinking about the many disgusting layers of this message. Another one is that anyone not using AI is somehow incompetent.
Successful game jams have been a thing for decades, you absolutely edgelord losers
Vibe your way to 50K.
The 2026 Epic AI MegaJam begins Nov 12: epic.gm/epic-ai-megajam-2026
ALT Red pill or blue pill meme from The Matrix, about choosing between two paths. Two open hands are held out on a black background. The red pill is labeled “Ship awesome games in a weekend.” The blue pill is labeled “Wait months to prototype.”
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
Field notes from Rome 🇮🇹
After Day 3 at MIA, @iBrews Alex shares what we’re learning about VR awareness, lightweight headsets, and how Gaussian splats can help film teams plan before stepping on set.
More from the demo area tomorrow.
#VR #Filmmaking #MIA
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
Security called me at 6:12 AM today.
"Patch every PHP server immediately."
I asked what happened.
"Two critical vulnerabilities. Remote code execution. No authentication required."
Cool.
How many PHP servers do we have?
According to inventory: 12
According to reality:
Nobody knows.
We found one running WordPress.
Three running old internal tools.
One under someone's desk.
Two inside vendor appliances.
A forgotten employee directory from 2016.
And a server named:
PHP-OLD-DO-NOT-TOUCH
Naturally, that one runs payroll exports.
Then we found a PHP 5.6 box.
I asked who owned it.
The documentation said:
BRIAN.
Brian left in 2019.
We called Brian.
He said:
"Oh wow, that's still running?"
Excellent.
By 8 AM, leadership joined the incident call.
CEO:
"Can hackers actually get in?"
Security:
"Potentially yes."
CEO:
"Without a password?"
Security:
"Yes."
CEO:
"Then why do WE need passwords?"
Not the lesson.
Finance asked if we could wait until the weekend to patch because downtime affects revenue.
Security explained that the alternative was letting strangers execute code on our servers.
Finance asked for a cost comparison.
At 9:17, someone suggested temporarily taking the vulnerable websites offline.
Marketing refused.
"Our campaign is live."
So for the next hour, the company officially decided maintaining a landing page for 20% off webinar registration was more important than preventing remote server takeover.
We finally patched everything we could find.
Then our scanner discovered another PHP server.
Hostname:
TEMP-PHP-2014
Uptime:
4,512 days.
Nobody knows what it does.
Nobody owns it.
Nobody can shut it down.
But every time we block network access, the warehouse stops printing shipping labels.
Security has classified it as critical infrastructure.
It is running PHP 5.4.
The vulnerability has existed longer than half our employees.
The emergency patch took four hours.
Finding out what PHP actually runs took eleven.
The internet isn't held together with code.
It's held together with servers everyone is afraid to turn off.
Let it be known that all my favorite people at Epic who worked in marketing / communications / strategy were also laid off earlier this year.
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
I’m at Unreal Fest Shanghai right now.
They just announced that keeping Blueprint support is NOT one of their requirements for early versions of UE6 anymore and support might already be completely removed right at the beginning.
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
Effective Immediately, all organizations using PHP for their systems are advised to be prepared for an update addressing two critical vulnerabilities. PHP is widely used for web applications. These vulnerabilities often provide a direct path to the server's file system or database. If an immediate update is not feasible, it is recommend that organizations take the system offline until it can be fully mitigated. NSA will follow up shortly with more specific guidance.
I’ve published quite a few skills for Capafy and it’s been fascinating to follow the ones that have really taken off. Over $289K in a month is wild!
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
If any of you happen to be in Rome. Alex is an OG in the space. Authentically passionate contributor
Alex Coulombe 🥽MIA Rome 🔜ADS Google retweeted
One prompt turns any Unreal Engine game into an instantly playable URL, powered by WASM/WebGPU.
app.simplystream.com
@asha_shar @scottvanvliet @EpicVogel @richgel999 @chrisheatherly @ChrisGPT @bilawalsidhu @xikhar
What am I doing here in Rome 🇮🇹? In short, helping the European film and television industries learn about the benefits of XR and Unreal Engine based on AGILE LENS projects. Discussions so far have been excellent!
In a moment I’m on a great panel moderated by Zoltan Batho then on Thursday Josette Seitz and I will be showing demos all day across 5 different headsets.
I’m told there’s 20,000 people here at the #MIA2026 Market, let’s see if we can demo to most of them :)
🎙 TODAY: Tue Oct 20, 5:00 PM
Panel: Video Games & Monetizing Film IP in Different Ways
Palazzo Barberini, Sala Pietro da Cortona
miamarket.it/en/event-detail…
🥽 THURSDAY: Oct 22, 3:30 PM
XR Collective Pitch + live VR demos all day
Hotel Excelsior, Trianon Room
miamarket.it/en/mia-xr-2/