Hideo Kojima Says AI Could Help Us Thrive — But Warns It Makes Games and Art Less Special

Hideo Kojima is talking about AI like it is the gross but necessary medicine you swallow to stay alive. He is not starry-eyed about it, but he is convinced we are taking it regardless. In a new Washington Post interview, he lays out a pretty clear worldview: adapt your brain for the information flood, or get washed away.

'We need to educate ourselves on how to live as a new kind of human in this era of information overload... AI may not only provide the information but also play a role in that education.'

'Only those who can correctly process the information and make use of these experiences will truly thrive in the 21st century.'

Art is everywhere now, and that is the problem (and the point)

Kojima says the stuff we used to put on a pedestal — movies, novels, music, games, art — does not feel 'special' the way it once did. In his view, we do not even need to try anymore; we can just let it all autoplay in an endless stream. He expects AI to make that passivity even easier and faster. It is a pretty bleak read on culture, and he knows it.

Here is where he pivots: yes, that dilution is real, but the trade-off is access. Back in the 20th century, a lot of people were shut out of these experiences — by country, society, religion, culture, or just norms. Today, those walls are a lot shorter. People can wander into worlds that used to be off-limits, from high art to the internet’s stranger aisles. Think everything from museum-grade cinema to AI cats shoveling pasta — the spectrum is wide, and it is open.

His big-picture pitch

• AI is not a cure-all; it is the tough medicine of our era. We are going to take it anyway.
• The task now is learning how to think, filter, and feel in a world that never stops dumping information on us.
• He believes AI will speed up the shift to passive consumption, but the upside is unprecedented access for people who were once closed off from art and ideas.
• He said back in August that generative AI will mark a new, distinct era of gaming — so this is not a sudden turn for him.

The part that raised my eyebrow

Kojima adds that, in our ultra-convenient daily life, we are going to need new ways of feeling and perceiving. Makes sense. But the example he reaches for about AI reshaping our instincts? Not exactly comforting. He does not frame it as a horror story — it is just one of those details that makes you go: okay, so this gets weird fast.

Inside the studio: AI tools on Death Stranding 2

On the practical side, Kojima says he used an 'AI machine learning' setup to painstakingly bring some of his celebrity friends into Death Stranding 2. Even then, he was not satisfied with the results. His verdict: 'I think I want to make it more realistic.' Translation: the tech is impressive, but his bar is higher.

Where this leaves us

The message, Kojima-style: AI is coming deeper into how we make and consume art, whether we love it or not. If we do not train ourselves to actually process what we are seeing, the feed will do the seeing for us. The medicine does not taste great, but he is already dosing it out — and still chasing a more 'real' hit of it in his own work.