GTA 6 Artist Says AI Won’t Replace People Anytime Soon

AI continues to be a hot topic across the tech world, and game development is right in the middle of it. While some believe a future full of AI-built worlds is just around the corner, one veteran developer from Rockstar Games isn’t buying into the hype.

David O’Reilly, a former environmental artist who worked on GTA 5, Red Dead Redemption 2, and GTA 6, says AI isn’t ready to take over the creative jobs — and probably never will. He shared his take in an interview with Kiwi Talkz, where he discussed his time at Rockstar and the current direction of the industry.

David left Rockstar back in 2023 due to burnout, but his time on high-budget open-world titles gave him a close look at what goes into massive projects like GTA 6. During the interview, he was asked about former Rockstar technical director Obbe Vermeij’s prediction that GTA 7 would be cheaper to make because AI would take over big chunks of development.

Vermeij said that AI could replace “banks of artists that are just building like massive maps or massive cutscenes,” within the next five years. He thinks the high cost of GTA 6 is a turning point, and that future Rockstar titles could automate much of the worldbuilding pipeline.

O’Reilly disagrees.

“I think the benefit of AI is going to be in sort of automating the tedious tasks.”

According to him, AI might speed up boring jobs, but it won’t handle complex art at a high standard.

“I don’t think we’re anywhere near letting AI make good terrain. It might make you a broad first pass of something, but it’s not going to get you down to player level quality without so much handholding that you might as well do it yourself.”

He explained that AI might help with tasks like vegetation placement or stitching terrain together, but those things already had systems in place on RDR2. In that game, the team was already moving away from hand-sculpting environments toward procedural methods, not full AI generation.

“AI can have its uses definitely, but it’s got to be in automating the tedious tasks that take a long time but are not really skilled jobs.”

When it comes to creating believable, immersive environments, David says AI tools just don’t have the skill. Even flashy tools like ChatGPT or similar models seem powerful at first but don’t hold up under close inspection.

“A lot of it is cr*p.”

This perspective comes at a time when AI is causing real concern among developers. Microsoft recently laid off hundreds of workers while increasing investment in AI. And across studios, there’s talk of automating parts of development to cut costs.

But there are voices pushing back. In February, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick also said he doesn’t think AI will reduce employment. He believes tools like this are just another evolution of the digital pipeline, and that they could make teams more productive without shrinking staff sizes.

“The bottom line is that these are digital tools and we’ve used digital tools forever. I have no doubt that what is considered AI today will help make our business more efficient and help us do better work, but it won’t reduce employment.”

Meanwhile, GTA 6 hype continues to grow. A leaker recently claimed that the game will run at 60fps and that a “custom music mode” is planned after launch. Rockstar hasn’t confirmed either claim yet.

As the wait for GTA 6 continues, it's clear the people who helped build it still see human talent as the main ingredient, no matter how advanced the tools get. For now, AI can help with the grind, but it won’t be designing Los Santos anytime soon.