Porr
Liam
March
8–12
Year
2021
Working time: 5 days, 6 hours a day on-line × 9 parallel groups of 10–20 participants per group.
Storytelling with machines: the future of creative writing
About the workshop
This course investigates the role of artificial intelligence in creative writing. We will be investigating the purpose behind different forms of creative writing, including literature, stories, and poetry, and how that purpose may change or be seen in a different light when it’s written by a machine. The class will be a hybrid of a lecture, seminar, and a studio. The students will have the chance to learn about how these algorithms can be used, and discuss the ethical implications. In addition, the students will have the chance to generate their own short stories using cutting edge AI.
Objectives
The students will learn about current AI models and how they can be used for stories. Current AI is good, but not perfect. They will learn about how these models are flawed and how they may be improved using creative techniques. In order to do this, the students will gain a basic understanding of how these models work and why it leads to certain strengths and weaknesses. Improving AI technology does not mean it will replace creatives. Rather, they can be used to augment the creative process to produce new and unique works. The students will explore the larger role machines will play in the creative process.
Content
The course will be a combination of lecture, assignments, and discussions. I will spend time lecturing to introduce and explain topics. Students will also be given relevant reading material which will also be presented in class. The students will work on generating their own creative content using machine learning models, which will be discussed and critiqued in class.
Outcomes
By the end of the course, students will have their own unique piece of AI-generated creative writing in a form of their choice.
Workshop description
Tools & materials
None
Schedule
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Monday
Welcome, course outline, opening lecture
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Tuesday
Online lecture, discussion of readings, introduction of assignment
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Wednesday
Online lecture, initial assignment critique and discussion
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Thursday
Online lecture, assignment finalization
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Friday
presentation at 13:30
Liam Porr
Hi my name is Liam Porr and I’m a UC Berkeley alumni with a degree in computer science. In the past I’ve worked as an engineering intern for several companies, including Facebook, Nvidia, and Symantec. I recently worked on a project involving OpenAI’s new GPT-3 natural language processing model, which was featured in various news outlets like the New York Times and MIT Tech Review. This project has sprung me into the world of AI ethics and forced me to consider how we consider the role of Artificial intelligence in our future. I also host a personal blog and a blog on natural language processing.