Each year, the Notre Dame-IBM Tech Ethics Lab releases a Call for Proposals (CFP) to fund practical and applied interdisciplinary research in tech ethics. The focus of the 2024 CFP was “The Ethics of Large-Scale Models.” The IEAI, with its project “MoralPLai: A Creative Method for Communicating and Co-shaping AI Ethics Research” has been selected as one of the 17 winning teams, which will collectively receive almost $1,000,000 in funding.
We are excited to have been paired with Professor Carys Kresny, a Notre Dame faculty member, who will collaborate with us and provide exciting aspects of this process. Explore her reflections on research-based theatre, including her role in the project and her aspirations for its final outcome.
Research-based theatre, at its best, unites the unique realities that research uncovers with the deeply human truth and poetry that theatre generates. American playwright Mac Wellman argues that drama which fails to acknowledge objects and ideas that power everyday survival in favor of the fantasy of conventional theatrical forms is lifeless—and a lie. Franz Xavier Kroetz, German playwright, whose defiant hyper-realism seems radically different from Wellman’s gonzo explosions of action and wordplay, pushes back on the elaborate articulation of thought and feeling in conventional theatre; “This endless verbalizing is a lie…I wanted to smash this convention of stage language…Language should have the same function in the theater that it has in reality.” Integrating research and theatre is a process of rigorously engaging with, instead of escaping from, the real. It has the potential to create fresh excitement towards science and innovative new approaches to theatre: a truly symbiotic relationship.
I will be participating in MoralPLai’s current project as theatrical instigator, collaborating with all scientists and artists involved, to create a script based on the spectrum of research findings and to generate a compelling, short theatre piece which, in turn, will generate audience engagement with the implications of those findings. Or, to simply answer the question, I am playwright and director.
As an artist, I strive to capture the often-ignored spectacle of the intimate and the hidden intimacy within the spectacle. This project has the potential to capture both. It is my hope that audience members will leave the production with a visceral sense that their voices matter in the development and use of AI and that they can understand and impact the relationship between this technology and their lives.
Visit the MoralPLai Project webpage to learn more and stay tuned for more updates.
