AI on stage: Research project concludes with public performances

An actor stands on stage. He speaks, moves and follows the instructions of an artificial intelligence. What the two produce together surprises the audience and researchers alike. This experiment was the core of the art project "The Answering Machine". For four years, scientists from the Technical University of Dresden, together with partners from Zurich, Stuttgart and Tübingen, investigated how humans and AI can be creative together. The Volkswagen Foundation funded the project.

The team started with simple chatbots, i.e. computer programs that write texts and answer questions. The results on stage were still bumpy at the time. "We started with classic chatbots, which produced very creative but often absurd dialogues in the demo performances, for example," says Stefan Scherbaum, Professor of Methods in Psychology and Cognitive Modelling at TU Dresden.

Then came ChatGPT - and everything changed

ChatGPT was released at the end of 2022. The AI program was suddenly able to write much more fluently, understand contexts better and conduct more convincing dialogs. This was a turning point for the project. "We were able to experience live how the technology improved from week to week, enabling us to make progress and create interaction scenarios in the project that no one would have dared to think about at the start of the project," recalls Scherbaum.

Suddenly it was possible to investigate collaboration between humans and machines in a way that would have been unthinkable before. The researcher sees this as a particular stroke of luck. "It was a privilege to be able to conduct research on this topic at precisely this time and to be able to participate in the developments up close." Many experts compare the significance of AI today with the invention of printing - a technology that is changing how people think, learn and work together.