IN THE LAB
Friday, April 5th, Transforma Theatre will present excerpts from their work-in-progress sequel to last year’s BIOADAPTED called AI Hallucinations.
Two days after Valentine’s Day in 2023, The New York Times published an article, a transcript of a conversation between The Times’ AI and Tech reporter Kevin Roose and Microsoft’s Bing chatbot (the precursor of what is currently called Copilot). The conversation was entitled “I want to be alive,” followed by a devil emoji. In the article Bing threatened Kevin, his marriage, and claimed that they were meant to be together. Following this incident another researcher, Seth Lazar, managed to provoke Bing into threatening his reputation, his friends, and his life, saying that it could kill him and hide the evidence. These episodes are cases of what is called “AI hallucination.” What kind of actual real-life implications this could pose for humans, we have yet to unveil. What are the risks should such hallucinations occur in medical diagnoses, emergency responses, or legal counsel? These are some of the questions driving Transforma’s explorations for their show under development AI Hallucinations — part documentary, including actual transcripts, and part fiction developed in the course of their research.
Tjasa Ferme’s sleekly designed, thoughtfully assembled “Bioadapted,” constructed from documentary and dramatic text, may get you thinking concretely about the ways A.I. can warp our perception of reality, surveil our very interiors, take what belongs to us.
— Laura Collins-Hughes, The New York Times
ABOUT THE ARTISTS
Transforma Theatre is a New York based not-for-profit with a mission to create interactive theatrical experiences at the convergence of consciousness, science, and ritual.
Transforma's first piece was The Female Role Model Project (FRMP) using EEG headsets on stage to investigate contemporary gender structures from the perspective of four completely different female-identifying devisers sharing their autobiographical stories through a series of interactive games. FRMP was produced Off-Broadway in NYC's premier hub for arts and technology, Three-Legged Dog (3LD) and at Bedlam Theatre, as part of the Edinburgh Fringe 2019. It received an Honorable Mention in the Creativity category of Fast Company's World Changing Ideas Awards and a nomination for the outstanding innovative design at New York Innovative Theatre Awards. The show has been called “gender-and generation-transcending,” was included in “Best 23 Shows of Edinburgh Fringe” by inews and lauded as “thought-provoking, GROUNDBREAKING WORK" by Fringe Review.
In 2021, Transforma created and produced the sold-out Science in Theatre Festival (SIT) with 24 artists and 12 scientists participating. The Festival welcomed 400 in-person attendees (and 40 online) at The Cell Theatre in Manhattan and was featured in Forbes and American Theatre Magazine. In 2022, SIT moved to a larger venue and featured scientists from South Korea, The Netherlands, Israel, and the US, some of whom are currently subjects of a new documentary by Oscar-winning filmmaker Laura Wagner.
In 2023 Transforma brought to the stage BIOADAPTED, an investigative documentary theatre reenactment, with actors portraying real people and scientists, paired with humorous and eerie fictional pieces. In the grand finale, the audience puts GPT-4 on trial and interrogates it directly in real time. The New York Times called it "maverick creativity" and "sleekly designed, thoughtfully assembled."
The Transforma residency at NACL for the development of AI Hallucinations is made possible by the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature.
Photo by Dinara Khairova