Building a Character: AI Humanities Lab

ENGLISH 90AI Subject & Catalog Number

Description

The goal of this course is to use AI agents in a theatrical context. Its core assumption, which we will test throughout the semester, is that creating an AI agent is like creating a dramatic character: both are artificial entities with which audiences interact. We’ll first explore this similarity historically and conceptually, through acting theories, movement systems, and dramatic texts from the first machine age, a period in the early 20th century when theater sought to catch up with the Industrial Revolution. In the second part of the semester, we’ll use this theoretical armature to tackle AI. We’ll explore how to create custom chatbots and agents (no coding experience required) and experiment with how to deploy them in a theatrical context. This second part is practice-based and experimental (no theatrical experience required). The goal is not to create a polished theatrical piece, but to gain experience with AI tools and explore how to use them (and how not to use them) in a theatrical context. Materials include Léger, Chaplin, Bergson, Meyerhold, Taylor, Treadwell, Stanislavski, Shaw, Ovid and others.