Can AI Imitate Nature—or Will It Always Be a Synthetic Echo?

A recap of the Galaxy Interactive hosted luncheon at the intersection of AI, gaming, and infrastructure.

At a recent luncheon on the sidelines of the Game Developers Conference and GPU Technology Conference, a room filled with founders, funders, and technologists gathered around a shared question, "Is AI overhyped or underhyped?"

It’s a question many people are asking in 2025—and yet, when posed in a space like this, where game designers, investors, infrastructure builders, and AI founders collide, it opens up more than just a debate about the current tech cycle. It becomes a window into deeper tensions: between nature and computation, between creativity and optimization, between the real and the rendered.

What followed wasn’t a consensus, but a mosaic of perspectives. The discussion ranged from the neurochemistry of video gaming to the Ship of Theseus thought experiment, from the ineffable role of tastemakers to the possibility of software capturing the spirit of human devotion, which revolved around a recurring theme: What does it mean to create something that feels real, and can AI ever truly do that?

Mimicry Machines in a World of Meaning

One thread that wove throughout the conversation was the distinction between imitation and resonance. AI today is staggeringly capable. It can compose music, generate game levels and adaptive level bosses, write dialogue and code, and even respond in real time to player choices with uncanny finesse. But can it mean something? Can it connect? Can it move people—not just in an engineered sense, but in that ineffable, energetic way?

This isn’t a rhetorical flourish—it’s becoming a practical question for creators. One founder put it bluntly, “If AI can make everything perfect, will that perfection start to feel plastic?” A machine might flawlessly simulate joy, fear, beauty—but does the experience hold weight if there's no struggle behind it, no friction, no risk?

There’s something people pick up on—some invisible thread woven through a film, a game, even a line of code—that speaks to the human energy behind it. You feel when something, like a video game, like a product or brand was loved into existence. That’s not something AI can fake. Not yet at least.

Thin-Slicing and the Tastemaker Dilemma

Another founder brought up Malcolm Gladwell’s concept of “thin-slicing”—the ability of humans to make rapid, nuanced judgments based on very little data. It’s how a DJ knows what track to play next. How a creative director senses which aesthetic will hit. How a game designer anticipates the moment a player will quit—or fall in love.

The question posed was, "Is being a tastemaker a uniquely human skill? Or could an AI eventually surpass us even here?"

Today’s models are trained on oceans of culture, but culture isn’t static. It’s shifting, contextual, irrational. Being on the pulse of culture isn’t just about having data—it’s about understanding zeitgeist. And that’s a word that doesn’t train well.

Still, some in the room saw a future where AI becomes a powerful co-pilot for tastemaking. Not a replacement, but a tool that surfaces patterns we wouldn’t otherwise notice. One investor likened it to jazz—where improvisation thrives best over a strong structure. Perhaps AI becomes that structure.

The Biology of Play, and the Chemistry of Connection

From there, the conversation turned to games themselves—not just as entertainment, but as biochemical events. Games are felt experiences. They flood us with dopamine, forge connections through oxytocin, trigger flow states that blur time and self. These are biological phenomena. And while AI can shape game mechanics with incredible precision, can it replicate the emotional terrain that makes play meaningful?

One member pointed out the emerging field of adaptive gameplay, where machine learning tailors experiences to the player’s mood, skill, or style. But even then, it’s not clear whether AI understands what it's shaping—or simply reacts.

More than one person noted that no matter how intelligent the system, it still lacks intent. It doesn’t care whether the game matters. Humans, by contrast, bring purpose, longing, even existential weight to the things we make. That might be the defining difference between creativity and computation.

The Ship of Theseus, Reloaded

Later in the lunch, the group leaned into the philosophical. We all know that AI tools are already moving into game design and development. Today, this collaboration exists, albeit in it’s very early days. But as it takes over more and more functions, the question emerges, "If AI replaces every part of a creative process—writing, visuals, code, even vision—is the end result still 'real'?"

The Ship of Theseus analogy came up as an updated version for 2025: If every element of a game was generated by AI, but the original creative spark came from a person, does the final product still count as “human-made” or has something essential been lost in translation? At what point is the soul of the game lost?

There was no definitive answer but one idea gained traction: The future of creation will be increasingly hybrid. The most resonant works won’t come from humans or machines, but from their interplay. A dynamic where AI augments imagination rather than replaces it. In that view, AI isn’t overhyped or underhyped. It’s miscast. It’s not the artist, but rather, the instrument.

Toward an Intentional Future

As the conversation wound down, a closing idea lingered: Intentionality may become the currency of authenticity in an AI-saturated world. When everything can be generated, what matters is why it was made, and who made the call to create it.

This, perhaps, is the connective tissue between AI, gaming, and infrastructure. Not just how we build, but why. The tools are advancing rapidly—agentic tech, distributed compute, real-time engines that render entire worlds at the edge. But the deeper question is, "What do we want to feel and how do we preserve the human signal amid the synthetic noise?" The answers are still unfolding, but if this lunch was any indication, the conversation is just beginning.