Despite building a career on writing, Rockstar co-founder Dan Houser says he’s “less scared than a lot of people” about LLMs and AI worming their way into videogame development and beyond.
Speaking on the Lex Fridman podcast, Houser was asked how he felt about the recent uptick in large language models and the increasing quality in how they’re able to write. “I’m not that afraid of them for large-scale concepts,” Houser said. “I don’t think they’re going to be very good at that.” He said that LLMs “can’t really come up with good new ideas,” adding: “If you’re not a very good concept artist, you’re in a lot of trouble. If you have original ideas, I think you’re fine.”
When it comes to their human-like writing abilities, Houser reckons they still have a long way to go. “I also think they’ve done the first 90% of the work to sound human, 95% possibly in some areas,” he said. “The last 5% is going to end up being about 95% of the work. I think the last bit with tech—in my experience, with things like facial animation—the last bits and pieces take far longer than the first bit.
“And so I’m probably a hideous Luddite, but I’m less scared than a lot of people. I think you’re going to end up with a lot of work that looks the same … If you’ve got talent, I think you’re going to be fine.” Ultimately, Houser thinks that they’re not “going to come up with magic” but will be “fantastic at coming up with really cheap, decent stuff.”
