Rockstar co-founder compares generative AI to mad cow disease in an „extremely apt comparison”

The co-founder of Rockstar, Dan Houser, offered the world a powerful simile about the future of generative AI. Houser no longer works for the studio that is arguably best known for delaying Grand Theft Auto 6, and is currently accused of union-busting in the UK after firing just over 30 employees. While on a UK radio show, Houser compared artificial intelligence to “mad cow disease,” an incredibly apt comparison given the primary theory of how that disease spread.

Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser compares generative AI to “mad cow disease” in an “extremely apt comparison”

After leaving Rockstar in 2020, Houser founded Absurd Ventures, a studio that works on video games, but doesn’t limit itself to just that. Absurd Ventures also has a comic series, American Caper, and an audio fiction series, A Better Paradise. Houser has been making the rounds in interviews promoting that new book, but has also been asked to weigh in on some of the biggest topics in video games, which these days often involve AI. Over the last week, the CEO of Epic Games, Tim Sweeney, controversially said that storefronts like Steam should remove AI disclosure requirements, and, conversely, the team behind the recent narrative game hit, Dispatch, claims that AI could never do what their voice actors did for that game.

In this most recent discussion, Houser was asked whether he believes AI will be the brilliant advancement that so many executives and tech companies claim it will be. In a response initially spotted by PC Gamer, Houser said, “I personally don’t think it will, because I think that AI is gonna eventually eat itself, because as far as I understand it—which is really superficial—the models scour the internet for information, but the internet’s going to get more and more full of information by the models. So it’s sort of like when we fed cows with cows and got mad cow disease.” The story was shared on Reddit, where users praised Houser’s comparison.

In the late 90s and early 2000s, mad cow disease was a serious worry in the United States, but it was more of an issue in the United Kingdom. It’s still not exactly clear how it spread, but one theory is that the bones or blood of infected cattle were somehow mixed into the feed of others, spreading the disease to them. If a human were to consume meat from an infected cow, it would be fatal.

Reddit users respond to Dan Houser's comments on AI.Source: Reddit

On Reddit, users appreciated Houser’s comparison, with one of the top comments reading, “Mad cow was a result of feeding cattle other cattle. AI is largely doing the same thing by being trained with sources that are becoming overrun with AI slop. It’s an extremely apt comparison…” The same user warned that allowing this to continue would lead to model collapse. A reply pointed out that the analogy “ties in with the whole dead internet theory,” which posits that the internet is increasingly populated by AI or algorithmically generated content rather than actual human interactions.

Based on these comments, it’s probably safe to say that Dan Houser’s future projects with Absurd Ventures won’t exactly be leaning into the wave of generative AI use that is becoming a bigger topic in video game development. Outcry against AI in video games also shows that there is an audience willing to support developers who don’t use it in their projects. We will have to see how the conversation around this subject evolves over the coming months and years.

Grand Theft Auto VI

November 19, 2026

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• Overview

• Rockstar Games
• AI / Artificial Intelligence
• Dan Houser
• Absurd Ventures