Audience members are invited to play with an AI, which in turn outputs systems, actions and rules for a generative stage show set somewhere deep in the not-so-distant near-future techno minds of life online.
DWAI uses a remote control system availabe on www.thedankinjector.online which lets the players control the charakteristics of the large language model that prompts the actors on the stage in real time.
The characteristics available are:
1) the Dominatrix, who is instructed to take pleasure from humiliation, eroticism & pain, and is trained on text data generated by professional Dominatrixes for this use.
2) the Cyborg, who is instructed to attempt to keep their contempt for humans secret while giving stage prompts that slowly ignore the humanness of the actors.
3) the Influencer, who wants to help the actors go viral, create more content and get more likes, and is trained on the output of the youtube api video-to-text on selected videos with the hashtags #getreadywithme, #influencer #cucumbersalad
4) the Gay Best Friend, who emulates Rupaul and who is instructed to take joy in promoting confidence, sassyness and authenticity
A player can fx. instruct the model to be 75% Dominatrix and 25% cyborg, prompting the actors on stage to “spank their cpu”.
This dynamic interaction continues while the actors on stage attempt to run through a theatrical score. Chaos ensues as their rehearsed choreographies get disrupted by forced catwalks, spank sessions, group selfies, revelations of secrets, admissions, flirtations, hugs, dance moments and so forth.
The actors have trained with the AI so they become familiar with its mannerisms, but have no idea what instructions it might invent and what characteristics the audience might prioritise.
By the end of the performance, the player who has given the AI most interactiondata recieves the meaningful choice of “staying in utopia” (in which our faith in the AI remains and the performance ends with smiles and pop music) or “reveal the data” (where the climate impact data of the generative AI is revealed and the performance ends with angry metal music and doom).
In all occurances of the performance so far, the winning player chose to stay within utopia.