Don’t fear, guys, that viral video that includes a pretend GTA 6 leak that was swiftly recognized as AI was all a social experiment! Doesn’t that routinely make the continued, excessive blurring between actuality and AI-generated junk a bit higher, as a result of on this case, it was finished to show some extent? No? Dang.
Yesterday, Kotaku‘s Ethan Gach opined on how the demand for information about Rockstar’s long-awaited, repeatedly delayed recreation, coupled with the rising ease with which your neighbor Bob can “create” footage and movies with generative AI instruments like ChatGPT, has made for a pretend footage nightmare.
On November 25, a verified Twitter/X account named ZapActu GTA6 issued an “EXTREMELY SERIOUS SITUATION” alert on the platform and shared allegedly leaked footage that appeared to indicate GTA 6 protagonist Lucia strolling round within the upcoming recreation’s open world. The video, reportedly first shared on TikTok, confirmed off a “dynamic weather system unlike anything seen in GTA V” and “shockingly lifelike NPCs” and a “level of realism” that was fairly frankly astounding as a result of it was all pretend. The publish sharing the video has since been deleted.
IGN reports that Zap Actu GTA6’s Discord was buzzing with backlash after the pretend footage leak, prompting them to situation a press release. They claimed the AI-generated GTA 6 movies had been created “to observe people’s reactions and to demonstrate how easy it has become in 2025 to blur the line between reality and AI-generated content.” In addition they mentioned there have been no “bad intentions” once they created and shared the pretend movies.
My intention was by no means to hurt anybody. I merely wished to create one thing intriguing that might deliver individuals collectively and spark dialogue throughout the GTA 6 group. I genuinely by no means anticipated a single video to generate such large engagement and attain.
In a a lot much less apologetic message to IGN, Zap Actu mentioned, “It was a huge joke actually, I did it just to entertain the community. Sorry for the false hope lol.”
The “I was doing the bad thing to shine light on the bad thing” excuse is one human beings have been utilizing for years (and the identical one I used when my dad and mom discovered a field of sweet wrappers beneath my mattress every week earlier than Halloween 1999). It’s arduous to imagine somebody who has devoted an enormous chunk of their web presence to monitoring Grand Theft Auto information would have “never expected a single video to generate such massive engagement and reach,” particularly contemplating the dearth of concrete GTA 6 information over the past decade.
Although Zap Actu claims they made no cash from sharing the pretend GTA 6 leaks, they do have an energetic “X Premium” account. Those that subscribe to the X Premium get a blue examine subsequent to their title and are eligible for monetization if they’ve at the least 500 verified followers (Zap Actu has over 4,000, although it’s unclear what number of are verified), have at the least 5 million natural impressions within the final three months, and are in a supported nation (Zap Actu’s account states it’s primarily based in France).
Sadly, as increasingly more AI content material will get heaped onto the principally unregulated slop pile that’s Twitter, we should always count on to come across extra pretend GTA 6 content material that may simply cross as actual. What a actuality we dwell in!
