Vancouver Island University students will ask their audiences if they can tell the difference between a play written by humans and one written by artificial intelligence.
According to a release, three stagings of the interactive performance ‘Two Truths and an AI’ will try to make that determination.
The release notes that the performances are a collaboration between two classes led by VIU creative writing and journalism professor Craig Taylor and theatre professor Leon Potter. Taylor’s class wrote two short plays and Potter had an AI tool write the third. The performances will include three short plays followed by a discussion about AI in the arts. Audience members will also be asked to guess which play was written by the AI.
“The discussion is a really important one to have and this is a great opportunity to try it out and see what can happen,” Potter said in the release. “Is this a good idea? Where are we at with this? Is this a tool we can maintain? It struck me as a great conversation to have.”
Stagings will run Wednesday to Friday, Dec. 6-8, from noon to 1 p.m. at the Mike Taugher Studio in Room 109, Building 330, at the Nanaimo campus, 900 Fifth St.
Tickets are free and available online through VIU’s co-curricular involvement app. VIU students can use their computer library account to log in, and non-student guests will need to register using an e-mail address to receive tickets.
Due to space limitations of the Mike Taugher Studio, each performance will be limited to 25 audience members per show.
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