Dr. Piotr Mirowski: AI, Improv, and the Future of Human-Machine Collaboration

Bridging AI and Performance

• 🧠 Piotr Mirowski is an AI research scientist at DeepMind and a passionate theater improviser, having spent 10 years in New York enjoying and performing theater.
• 💡 He realized around 2016 that his two worlds of AI research and performance could connect, leading to innovative projects.
• 🎭 His work involves training AI systems to be useful for humans, including robots and algorithms for tasks like weather forecasting or epileptic seizure prediction, even before AI became a buzzword.

Evolution of AI in Creative Arts

• 🚀 Early language models in 2013-2015 became fast enough for conversational text generation, sparking a revolution in AI's creative applications.
• 🎬 Initial AI-generated creative works like the film "Sunspring" and play "Beyond the Fence" in 2016 were often nonsensical but inspired new forms of human-AI collaboration.
• 🤖 Mirowski developed an improv show where a toy robot interacted with humans using speech recognition and a language model, creating a live, challenging performance that he built from scratch.

The Dual Nature of AI in Improv

• ✅ AI in improv challenges performers to adapt and become better, with audiences often supportive and cheering for the human effort to make it work.
• ⚠️ However, integrating technology introduces significant technical challenges and stress, as seen in instances like robot crashes and logistical issues during remote performances.
• 🎭 The experience led to a new saying, "never work with robots," echoing traditional theater advice about children and animals, due to the inherent unpredictability.

Audience Engagement and Ethical Considerations

• 💬 Mirowski's shows feature a robot engaging directly with the audience, initially via a "Wizard of Oz" setup, then transitioning to AI-generated responses to trigger memories and stereotypes.
• 🔍 Performances also address contemporary AI issues like deepfakes and copyright related to models trained on vast datasets, highlighting the rapid progress of technology.
• ⚖️ The discussion emphasizes the importance of consent when AI generates content in an artist's style, contrasting it with unauthorized use of their work.

Future of Human-AI Collaboration

• 🧠 AI excels in rigid, rule-based systems like chess or Go, outperforming humans due to finite possibilities within defined universes.
• 🌍 However, the human world is infinitely complex, involving emotions and motivations, making human tasks much harder for AI to fully master, as seen with self-driving cars.
• 🌱 AI can serve as a writing aid, helping playwrights and screenwriters with ideation, creating "vomit drafts," or offering different perspectives, rather than replacing human creativity.
• 🤝 The goal is to use AI as a tool to challenge and inspire humans, making them better performers and creators, similar to how a marathon challenges a runner to improve personally.