AI as Storyteller

New paradigms for narratives

This week, I’m participating in the Alumni College at the university where I teach. The title for this year’s week-long sessions is The Imitation Game: Artificial Intelligence and the Human Position.

Here’s the brief introduction that I’m giving this evening

I spent most of my career as a librarian, with a focus on technology. As of this month, I am now in the Data Science program where I will be teaching 3 courses on AI this coming academic year.

For the last 30 years, I’ve been intrigued by understanding how we tell and read stories (both fiction and factual) in digital media. That interest goes back to 1993 when I developed the first online exhibitions for the Library of Congress. Since 2015, I’ve co-taught a course in Journalism with Professor Toni Locy on Multimedia Storytelling Design.

I will be talking with you later in the week about a new genre of stories, of entertainment, that is emerging by the capabilities of AI. These AI-driven narratives will be unique to each person’s experience. You will enter an environment. Think about stepping into the scene of your favorite movie or novel, and exploring that world of imagination. As kids we did that so often, play acting in our minds. We are at the point where we can visually step into that environment. You can choose your own adventure through a story, similar to those Choose Your Own Adventure books that you might have known as a kid.

AI is capable of creating dynamic storylines based on your actions. You can have unlimited conversations with any character because the words and voices of the character will be powered by AI.

What does that mean for creativity? To be an author, a storyteller, or an active participant in a story?

One of the reasons I’m focusing on entertainment is that through stories we can explore the boundaries, we can tap into those ethical issues.

I saw this quote earlier today:

“In the end, we'll all become stories.”
-Margaret Atwood

On Thursday, you will get hands-on experience creating a digital human, a (somewhat) realistic 3-D person.

This genre of stories, a mixture of video games, novels, and theater is more like jazz.

In these AI-driven stories, you are intrigued and delightfully surprised by the the unexpected turns of a conversation that leads you down an unseen branching path.

I believe in this vision so much that I am retiring early next year, moving abroad, and creating a studio that designs these interactive experiences. That is the work for the rest of my life.

I want to leave you with this thought that I encourage you to be thinking about this week. How old will our students be in the middle of this century? 2050. Our upcoming senior class were born in 2002, 2003. Think about what year it will be when they are your age.

I tell all my students that they are the ones who get to define this century. They are the ones who get to create entirely new industries. And they are the ones who must face the ethical issues of AI and other aspects of our world, because their children will live into the next century.