For me, the most captivating aspect of gaming has never been exquisite graphics or high scores. Rather, it is those moments of decision that compel me to pause my mouse hand and reflect deeply.

There has been a heated discussion in the gaming world recently, sparked by Dan Houser—the creator of Grand Theft Auto and Red Dead Redemption—who issued a warning about "AI Mad Cow Disease." As a godfather of the open-world genre, Houser holds a deep anxiety regarding the potential flattening of the human experience.

"AI Mad Cow Disease" refers to a kind of model inbreeding. It happens when AI stops learning from authentic experiences and instead repeatedly replicates the synthetic data of the previous generation. It is like the parable of the blind men and the elephant: the first generation touches a leg and believes it to be the elephant; the next generation then hallucinates an entire body based solely on that single leg.

A model mimicking Van Gogh's style might produce an image that looks similar, but it cannot comprehend the feelings of a human being standing on the precipice of a mental breakdown. Over time, such creations drift further and further from a sense of reality.

Recently, a game was disqualified from an award for relying heavily on AI-generated content. This backlash does not reflect a fear of technology, but rather a player's instinctive rejection of "outsourcing the soul."

I do not reject generative AI; it is an excellent assistant. The problem is that when it comes to bestowing meaning, AI falls short.

In the greatest video games, the moments that touch us most deeply are often those where there is no single correct answer. AI excels at finding the path with the highest win rate within a given set of rules, yet it cannot comprehend why different people, facing the same moral dilemma, would make starkly different choices.

But it is precisely because of this ambiguity that games possess meaning, which in turn catalyzes community. Because your choice differs from mine, we have the motivation to share, to argue, and ultimately, to build a connection.

If a game's ending were merely a standardized, high-score answer calculated by an AI, this interaction would vanish.

This is the fundamental reason why games cannot be fully replaced by AI: what we care about is the human connection built through these authentic choices.

This parallels many forms of content creation. An AI-generated song might be catchy, but if there is no genuine life experience behind it—no creator who can be understood or spark curiosity—the relationship cannot be sustained and quickly becomes tiresome. It fails to unearth new meaning with every exploration and share.

Only works that allow us to see one another within a dilemma can—like Arthur Morgan, the protagonist of the classic Red Dead Redemption 2—live on in the hearts of countless players even years later, triggering reflection across generations and creating true meaning.

If we position AI as a bridge between people, it can be a wonderful facilitator, like a warm, inviting bonfire. But if you place it in the spot where a human should stand, that is the onset of "Mad Cow Disease"—a spark likely to become a forest fire that destroys interpersonal trust, burning beyond all control.