Dan Houser defends human creativity and explains departure from Rockstar

The veteran of Grand Theft Auto, Dan Houser, cofounder of Rockstar, stated that humans will continue to be the driving force behind creative endeavors, rejecting the ability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to produce quality content. The statement was made to Radio 4 during the promotion of his debut novel, A Better Paradise, which, ironically, deals with an AI that goes out of control.

Houser reiterated previous comments, telling presenter Kate Molleson: “In most areas, the future of quality writing is writing done by humans.” He added: “Most creative endeavors are still very much dominated by humans and will be forever, at least if they're using language models equivalent to doing things, as far as I understand. Sometimes it can produce interesting random things, but it's quite generic, the level of content it creates.”

When asked about his decision to leave Rockstar in 2020, Houser explained that the departure was motivated by the time and complexity of the studio's projects. The developer confessed that he wasn't sure if he had the energy to complete another game of that magnitude: “The projects are really long and difficult and take a long time to make.”

He detailed the difficulty: “It can be a hard journey to finish things on this scale with so many moving parts and you have 4,500 lines of dialogue and an equal number of other things trying to fit together. It's this huge production experience and it swallows up all your time for many years in a row and I didn't know if I had another one of those games in me.” Houser left Rockstar in 2020 and founded a new company called Absurd Ventures the following year, officially announcing it in 2023.

In the midst of a period where Rockstar faces allegations of "union busting" after dismissing members from a workers' union Discord, Molleson asked if the game industry is a good place to work. Houser defended the sector: “Fundamentally, yes.” He acknowledged that "no industry is perfect," but concluded: “My experience in the game industry has been that it's fundamentally... all companies are different, but it's fundamentally a positive and supportive environment for most people most of the time. But no place is perfect.”