Playing with Fire

Short Event Description
Artist
April 12, 2023
ONX Studio
645 5th Ave, Lower Level, NY 10022
The MAXforum conversation series is supported in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council and by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.

Creative muse, blunt instrument, or societal threat?

Theater director and MacArthur Fellow Annie Dorsen talks with NYU and Google data scientist, linguist, and cognitive psychologist Tal Linzen about the challenges and insights that come from working with generative AI. They explore how the artistic process helps us wrestle with the drastic changes that AI is quickly bringing about, diving into the difference between current AI technologies and how humans learn so quickly with relatively little data. Dorsen’s previous works in algorithmic theater have included Infinite Sun (2019), a sound installation that plays with the spiritual power of chants and feedback loops, and A Piece of Work (2013), a play that used algorithms and bots to reimagine Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Join us as we get a sneak peek into Dorsen’s new work, Prometheus Firebringer, which uses GPT-3 to speculate on the lost works of Aeschylus’ Prometheus trilogy, and hear what artists and scientists are really doing when they integrate AI into their processes.

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