Misremembering Machines: A Creative Collaboration on Memory in AI-driven Storytelling

Misremembering Machines details a collaboration between an SME game company and an embedded Digital Humanities (DH) Research Software Engineer (RSE) to study the effect of memory on AI driven storytelling. The RSE is both a developer and a writer, uniquely suited to providing technical and creative feedback, and providing the connective tissue between the development and critical strands of the project. The project centred around translating an immersive theatre show into a video game, where AI characters replace the interactive audience elements. The AI characters dissemble, misremember and outright lie about the player’s actions and choices. This translation raised a series of interrelated technical, social, and creative issues related to agency, bias and representation in AI driven storytelling, as well as the challenge of effective collaboration between different academic disciplines and the creative industries.