The Bismarck State College Theatre is presenting a collection of plays written entirely by artificial intelligence.
Associate professor of technical theatre, Dean Bellin, says "The AI Plays" explore the relationship between humanity, technology and the future of artificial intelligence.
He says the plays are an unedited view of everything AI generated for them, such as images, music, and scripts.
"We decided as a group that we weren't going to start this process until like the first day of rehearsals, so we were sitting there and literally watching Chat GPT create the script for us in front of us. Some of it came out really good, like way better than we kind of thought, and it gave us all really a lot of pause."
Bellin says the themes of each of the eight short plays and eight monologues were prompted by the perspectives of the actors involved.
"That is how we created the prompts for Chat GPT. It was really going to be based around where they saw the future, and you're really getting all different perspectives on this. There are some people that are really positive about the futures, some a little more negative about the future, and some that just don't understand what's happening or really where things are going. That's just the conversation that we wanted to have with our audience."
Bellin says “The AI plays” present all sides of the argument, both pro and anti-technology.
He says the performances are balanced between humor and seriousness.
"You know, we've been working with it for so long now, so we kind of know where the funny parts are and, we think it's funny. I have no idea how an audience is going to react to this. I think some people may just walk out terrified and some may walk out loving it, so yeah, we'll see."
The performances of “The AI Plays” are set for December 7th through 10th on the BSC campus.