Dan Houser has harsh words for the current AI hype. He compares the technology to “mad cow disease,” warns of a collapse in quality, and sharply criticizes tech executives.
Rockstar Games co-founder Dan Houser is one of the most influential figures in video game history. As lead writer, he was largely responsible for the bite of the GTA series and the emotional depth of Red Dead Redemption.
After leaving Rockstar and founding his new company Absurd Ventures, he is now speaking openly about current industry trends. In an interview with Virgin Radio UK, Houser drew a drastic comparison between generative AI and an animal disease and harshly criticized the technology’s proponents in the executive suites.
The “mad cow disease” of data processing
In an interview with British radio host Chris Evans (not to be confused with the Captain America actor), Houser was asked about the impact of artificial intelligence on creative work. While many investors and CEOs see AI as the holy grail of efficiency, Houser predicts that current models will fail due to a self-reinforcing decline in quality.
Houser expressed skepticism about the idea that AI will lead us to a bright future.
His main argument relates to the way large language models (LLMs) are trained. Since these models search the internet for information, but the internet itself is increasingly flooded with AI-generated content, a closed feedback loop is created.
Houser expressed this with an analogy:
“It’s kind of like we fed cows to cows and got mad cow disease.”
“So it’s kind of like we fed cows to cows and got mad cow disease.”
With this comparison, Houser alludes to the BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) crisis, which was triggered by feeding animal meal to cattle.
In professional circles, the phenomenon described by Houser is known as “model collapse”: when AI is trained with synthetic data from previous AI generations, the results become increasingly inaccurate and lose variance.
Harsh criticism of the tech elite
Houser was even more explicit in his assessment of the people responsible for the current boom. Without naming specific names, he characterized the driving forces behind the AI revolution as people who often lack basic empathy and creativity.
According to Houser, humanity is currently being pushed in a direction by a certain group that he finds problematic. He described these leaders as “perhaps not fully developed human beings”:
“Some of these people who are trying to define the future of humanity, creativity, or whatever through AI are not the most human or creative people. So they’re saying, in a sense, ‘We’re better at being human than you are.’ That’s obviously not true.”
This statement stands in direct contrast to the narratives of many large publishers and tech companies, which often tout AI as a tool for “democratizing creativity.” Houser clearly sees this as a form of hubris on the part of technocrats who want to replace human experience and artistic expression with algorithms without understanding the essence of what they are actually automating.
Despite his harsh criticism and gloomy prognosis, Houser does not completely reject the technology: In the interview, he is quite realistic about its areas of application. He concedes that AI “will do some tasks brilliantly.” His skepticism primarily relates to the claim that the technology can brilliantly solve every task or will replace human creativity on a large scale. Since 2023, the Rockstar co-founder has been devoting himself to new projects with his new studio Absurd Ventures. Graphic novels, elaborate podcasts, and, of course, new games are in the works.
Given his clear words, you can be pretty sure that this content will not be written, recorded, or illustrated by ChatGPT and the like. If it says Houser on it, then despite all the modern technology, it’s likely to still contain human storytelling.
