Networks and Narratives: AI in Storytelling
To begin by answering the most natural question, yes, AI today is advanced enough to tell narratives and craft compelling stories. And unlike what is easy to imagine about AI working on creative projects, AI is able to treat this not just as an automated task, but also to work as creative partners in the process of writing stories.
One of the most exciting developments in this field has been the creation of dynamic narratives. To explain that a bit further, imagine if you could read a book whose plot changed according to your own reading of it. You can provide inputs and have control of the narrative. We can remember cultural icons that have been such interactive books, the most recent of which is Bandersnatch, the Black Mirror movie on Netflix which allowed audiences to pick the decisions that the main character made. This level of personalization is a game-changer in the storytelling landscape.
AI has also been changing the forms of storytelling itself. Generative models like Chat-GPT have recently come under focus on social media, for their ability to write poetry, scripts and stories in the voices of people from different national and cultural backgrounds, and also ages! This kind of storytelling and collaboration could lead to the creation of altogether different and new art forms.
AI is obviously most used and sought after for its ability to sift through vast amounts of data. How can this be applied to storytelling? As with anything else, AI has been able to analyze an almost infinite bank of literature to understand how plots and stories work, and through this study, has been able to come up with new and unpredictable stories itself.
Still, even with these developments, there obviously remain certain difficulties when it comes to using AI in storytelling. Whether AI-generated material can equal the richness and emotional resonance of stories written by humans is one of the main areas of concern. So, even though AI is able to conjure stories– an art previously only available to humans– it is unable to do so with the heart and emotionality that humans can. However, this is an obstacle that would crop up in any kind of creative use of AI–certainly one that is devoid of numbers and calculation, which are infinitely more certain and sure, and can be analyzed by AI in a way that literature and emotion cannot.
On the other hand, any developments in AI storytelling necessarily raise moral and legal questions. It is therefore necessary to address concerns about representation, authorship, ownership, and privacy. It is also important that we make sure that AI-generated content respects people's right to privacy and is inclusive and diverse.
Sources: