GTA 6, Algorithms, And AI Are Colliding In The Worst Way

“GTA 6 Keeps Trending Despite Zero New Info,” is a headline I wrote back in 2021. It’s even more true today, except that the spread of generative AI tools now makes it easier than ever to trick people into thinking there is new info about Rockstar’s delayed open-world sequel. With just a few clicks, you can spawn convincing fake footage and send it masquerading around the internet until it becomes embedded in the algorithmic machinery and goes viral in one way or another. The stakes are low, but it’s a perfect example of how being online keeps getting worse.

“GTA 6 ALERT – EXTREMELY SERIOUS SITUATION” the verified X account Zap Actu GTA6 posted on Tuesday. It was re-sharing allegedly leaked footage of the upcoming game found on TikTok and hyping it up due to the “sheer level of realism” including “shockingly lifelike” NPCs and a “dynamic weather system unlike anything seen in GTA V.” The footage is 100 percent fake, but that didn’t stop the post from generating over 4.2 million impressions as it zipped around Elon Musk’s third-rate Reddit knock-off.

It illustrates the collision of three distinct but related developments: industrial-grade AI slop, algorithms designed to make that slop go viral, and the enshitification of a major social media platform controlled by a single, unhinged, soon-to-be trillionaire. None of this felt great four years ago, but my god, how quickly did it all get much, much worse.

The problem’s not isolated to X, either. Earlier this year, YouTuber Jeffery Phillips made it his mission to convince Google that GTA 6 had a twerk button. He did this simply by posting over and over again on X and Reddit about how the twerk button was real. The feedback loop eventually succeeded at tricking Google’s internet-scrapping AI Overview search tool.

“I think I spent a total of three months doing this ‘challenge,’ he told Polygon last month. “I started it in July and it was finished late September. I have no idea how much time I spent posting but it wasn’t an insane amount. Some days I’d just post one or two things.”

It’s the most brazen example of Google’s new AI search tool getting suckered into such a high-profile and obvious mistake, but there are tons of smaller mistakes it makes that no one ever bothers to talk about or make a big deal out of, like what happened to Steam’s merchant sim Trash Goblin, a game about polishing up junk and selling it. Its developers found that Google kept giving players incorrect information about the game and how it works.

“As a programmer, if I type something into a computer, I expect it to give out the same output over and over,” one of its developers told Game File. “Google results give something different every time, in some of these cases. They’re not learning better each time. Sometimes you get the right thing, and the next time you get something wrong again.”

But Google isn’t just the gateway to the written internet. It also controls YouTube. Earlier this month, it sent thousands of people to a fake GTA 6 trailer that it happened to recommend to people via notification on their phones. Open “Grand Theft Auto VI – Final Trailer (2026) Rockstar Games” and you’ll be treated to an elaborate AI-made fan concept trailer for what someone thinks the game could be like.

It has over 600,000 views, 18,000 downvotes, and 2,000 comments. “No way everyone sent here by google lmao,” reads the top one with over 7,000 likes. “Google fucking trolled us lmao,” reads the second. “Screw that Google notification,” reads the third. My favorite comment summed up this unconventional rickroll like this: “Ay no way we getting trolled by Google for a gta6 AI trailer before GTA 6.”

For much of its recent history, the internet has been a negotiation between humans and algorithms. Humans make and share stuff. The algorithms help organize and sort it. A few people get very rich. Hopefully, the rest of us come away slightly better informed or at least entertained. Generative AI threatens to blow up that entire deal. It was never very good to begin with, but what’s coming to replace it is going to be so much worse.