Patrick Kappeler

Deep Structure Storytelling: How to map 1000 human wonders with artificial intelligence (AI) to forge next-generation stories

PROLOGUE

Digital transformation and with it the arrival of AI is fundamentally changing our lives. The implications that disruptive technologies will have on our society are hard to assess. Especially AI scares people. Whose jobs will it replace? Who will be monitored on whose behalf? And what the heck are the Chinese doing with the biggest social engineering project mankind has ever seen? It seems we're going full speed ahead into an unknown future, losing our orientation with every mile we travel. Old systems of order get devalued and new ones have yet to be formed. In short: We are knee-deep in an epochal paradigm shift.

DIALOGUE

The sovereignty to interpret data will become the factor of power of the 21st century global information culture. Interpreting data means forging narratives. Narratives that define our horizon of perception and simultaneously constitute new systems of order. As storytellers and narrative experts, we are at the forefront of this development and at the epicenter of social tectonics. Can we continue to create value-based systems of orientation with narratives that give meaning? And if so, how? Or is everything lost? Are we stuck in a swamp of information manipulation and fake data? Are AI and Data Mining just the last nail in the coffin?

The workshop is a joint attempt to find answers to the most pressing questions of the coming years:

Which forces and narratives unfold in an information culture dominated by AI and data mining? How will they shape the reality of our lives?

Who will be the losers, who will be the winners? What opportunities and risks will we face?

How and where do we, as narration experts, use AI tools ourselves.

Content Workshop

  • An introduction where and how AI is used today: Social engineering, sentiment analysis, recognition of semantic depth structures in data, etc.

  • We experiment with a modern AI profiler, extract psychological profiles from texts, try to interpret them and implement the results with a storytelling framework.

  • We explore the basic conditions and possible applications for telling stories with AI and Data Mining and work out a catalogue of requirements together.

  • We develop and sign an ethical guiding star code for narrative work with AI and publish the document on the net as a co-creative open source project.

Goals

  • The participants will have taken a first look at the hidden depth structures in texts (and other data) and have developed a feeling for potential.

  • The participants will be able to experiment with AI tools themselves and gain practical experience of what AI can do and how they can be seamlessly integrated into their existing work.

  • The participants will be sensitized to the risks and opportunities of the new technology and inspired to help shape sustainable narratives at the interface of technology, business and society.

EPILOGUE

AI is not able to "understand" complex contexts, nor does it have the ability to mathematically reproduce empathy. Understanding data, interpreting it correctly and translating it into everyday life with the necessary portion of emotional intelligence is and will remain the domain of humans for the foreseeable future. To be more precise: The domain of storytellers, narration experts and narration architects.