Jhave and Scott talk about simulated worlds or environments created with AI, considering what are the boundaries for artifical life.

References

ByteDance. (2025). Protenix: Toward High-Accuracy Open-Source Biomolecular Structure Prediction. https://github.com/bytedance/Protenix

Conway, J. H. (1970). The Game of Life. Scientific American, 223(4) https://conwaylife.com/

Genesis Consortium. (2024). Genesis: A generative universal physics engine for robotics and beyond.

Google Quantum AI. (2024, December 9). Meet Willow, our state-of-the-art quantum chip. https://blog.google/innovation-and-ai/technology/research/google-willow-quantum-chip/

Kumar, A., Lu, C., Kirsch, L., Tang, Y., Stanley, K. O., Isola, P., & Ha, D. (2024). Automating the Search for Artificial Life with Foundation Models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.17799

Nvidia. (2025)6). NVIDIA Launches Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform to Accelerate Physical AI Development. https://nvidianews.nvidia.com/news/nvidia-launches-cosmos-world-foundation-model-platform-to-accelerate-physical-ai-development

Reynolds, C. W. (1987). Flocks, herds and schools: A distributed behavioral model. https://www.red3d.com/cwr/boids/

Sims, K. (1994). Evolving Virtual Creatures. https://www.karlsims.com/evolved-virtual-creatures.htmlThis work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this episode we are joined by co-authors Lillian-Yvonne Bertram and Nick Montfort to talk about their new publication Output: An Anthology of Computer Generated Text, 1953-2023. We learn about their path into digital poetry and the process of putting together this anthology.

References

Bertram, Lillian-Yvonne. (2019). Travesty generator. https://www.nationalbook.org/books/travesty-generator/

Bertram, Lillian-Yvonne, & Montfort, Nick (Eds.). (2024). Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023. https://direct.mit.edu/books/edited-volume/5867/OutputAn-Anthology-of-Computer-Generated-Text-1953

Gysin, Brion, & Sommerville, Ian. (1960). Permutation Poems.https://davidpocknee.ricercata.org/gysin/

Knowles, Alison, & Tenney, James. (1967). The House of Dust.https://theverseverse.com/poems/the-house-of-dust

Lutz, Theo. (1959). Stochastic Texts https://www.stuttgarter-schule.de/lutz_schule_en.htm

Montfort, Nick. (2017). The Truelist. https://counterpathpress.org/the-truelist-nick-montfort

Montfort, Nick, & Wardrip-Fruin, Noah (Eds.). (2003). The New Media Readerhttps://www.newmediareader.com/

Nish-Lapidus, Matt. (2020). Work, Life, Balance. https://www.aleator.press/shop/p/work-life-balance

Richardson, Leonard. (2013). Alice’s Adventures in the Whale. Stiles, Sasha. (2021). Technelegy. https://www.sashastiles.com/technelegyhardcover

Strachey, Christopher. (1953). Love Letters https://alpha60.de/art/love_letters/manchester_gallery/

Yngve, Victor H. (1961). Random Sentences https://literaryai.library.columbia.edu/litai/i36/This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this AI Update Jhave and Scott discuss O3, the new AI model announced by OpenAI, which excels in high-complexity tasks, demonstrating state-of-the-art capabilities in science, structured reasoning, and problem-solving.

References

Brown, N., & Sandholm, T. (2018). Superhuman AI for heads-up no-limit poker: Libratus beats top professionals. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.aao1733

Chollet, F. (2019). On the measure of intelligence.https://arxiv.org/abs/1911.01547

DeepSeek-AI et al. (2024). DeepSeek-V3 Technical Report. https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.19437

DeepSeek-AI et al. (2025). DeepSeek-R1: Incentivizing Reasoning Capability in LLMs via Reinforcement Learning. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.12948

Epoch AI. (2024). FrontierMath: A Benchmark for Evaluating Advanced Mathematical Reasoning. https://epoch.ai/frontiermath

Meta Fundamental AI Research Diplomacy Team (FAIR) et al. (2022). Human-level play in the game of Diplomacy by combining language models with strategic reasoning. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.ade9097

Rein, D., et al. (2023). GPQA: A Graduate-Level Google-Proof Q&A Benchmark. https://arxiv.org/abs/2311.12022

Shao, Z., et al. (2024). DeepSeekMath: Pushing the Limits of Mathematical Reasoning in Open Language Models. https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.03300

Snell, C., Lee, J., Xu, K., & Kumar, A. (2024). Scaling LLM Test-Time Compute Optimally can be More Effective than Scaling Model Parameters. https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03314

Sutton, R. (2019). The Bitter Lesson. Incomplete Ideas. http://www.incompleteideas.net/IncIdeas/BitterLesson.html

Xin, H., et al. (2024). DeepSeek-Prover-V1.5: Harnessing Proof Assistant Feedback for Reinforcement Learning and Monte-Carlo Tree Search https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.08152

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this episode, Alinta Krauth, new media artist, is joining Scott Rettberg for a discussion about her art and interspecies communication.

References

Animal-Computer Interaction (ACI). https://aci-sigchi.org/

Bertram, L. Y., & Montfort, N. (Eds.). (2024). Output: An Anthology of Computer-Generated Text, 1953–2023. https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262549813/output/

Kleinberger, R., Hirskyj-Douglas, I., Cunha, J., & Meisner, E. (2023). "Birds of a Feather Video-Flock Together: Design and Evaluation of an Agency-Based Video-Calling System for Domesticated Parrots." Proceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3544548.3581166

Krauth, A. (2020). The Bat Translator (also known as The Clouds Are Falling) https://www.alintakrauth.com/#!portfolio

Krauth, A. Interspecies Games https://www.enrichmentart.com/#!portfolio

Krauth, A. (2023). When the Songbird Speaks. https://thedigitalreview.com/issue04/alintakrauth/index.html 

Leonardo/ISAST. https://leonardo.info/

McKay, L. J. (2020). The Animals in That Country. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/52527550-the-animals-in-that-country

MeowTalk AI. https://www.meowtalk.app/

Sharma, P., et al. (2024). "Contextualizing Sperm Whale Codas." Nature Communications. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47221-8

Slobodchikoff, C. N. (2012). Chasing Doctor Dolittle: Learning the Language of Animals https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263199506_Chasing_Doctor_Dolittle_Learning_the_Language_of_Animals 

Whitman, W. (1855). Leaves of Grass https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/1322

Woollahra Digital Literary Award. https://www.woollahra.nsw.gov.au/library/whats-on/digital-literary-awardThis work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

Jhave and Scott discuss recent developments in AI and forecast new developments in AI storytelling, reasoning, efficiency, organoids, and medicine coming in 2025.

References

Amodei, D., & Hernandez, D. (2018). AI and Compute. https://openai.com/index/ai-and-compute/

Jumper, J., et al. (2021). Highly accurate protein structure prediction with AlphaFold. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03819-2

Snell, C., et al. (2024). Scaling LLM Test-Time Compute Optimally can be More Effective than Scaling Model Parameters. arXiv. https://arxiv.org/abs/2408.03314

Wang, Z., Li, J., Lin, H., Yoon, J., & Bansal, M. (2024). DreamRunner: Fine-Grained Compositional Story-to-Video Generation with Retrieval-Augmented Motion Adaptation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.16657

Watson, J. L., et al. (2023). De novo design of protein structure and function with RFdiffusion. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-06415-8

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and David Jhave Johnston dive deep into the connection between AI and violence. Tune in for the latest AI updates, and the last episode of the year. We will continue the season in the new year.

References

Calvo, Serena, et al. 2024. Does suicide contagion (Werther Effect) take place in response to social media? A systematic review. Spanish journal of psychiatry and mental health.

HBO Entertainment. 2011. Game of Thrones. HBO.

Lystad, Reidar P., Brown, Benjamin T. 2018. “Death is certain, the time is not”: mortality and survival in Game of Thrones. Inj. Epidemiol, (5)44. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40621-018-0174-7

Ree, Benjamin, [director]. 2024. “The Remarkable Life of Ibelin.” Netflix. 1 hr., and 24 min.

Ritchie, Hannah. 2024. “Australia approves social media ban on under-16s.” BBC News. Effective November 29, 2024, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c89vjj0lxx9o

The New York Times. 2024. “Can A.I. be blamed for a teen's suicide?” The New York Times. Effective, October 23, 2024, https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/23/technology/characterai-lawsuit-teensuicide.html

Weizenbaum, Joseph. 1967. ELIZA.

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

On today’s episode, recent PhD graduate, Marianne Gunderson, joins Scott for a discussion on creepypasta, fanfiction and monsters, and machine vision. Doctor Gunderson has started her postdoctoral research at the ALGOFOLK (algorithmic folklore) project connected to the Center for Digital Narrative.

References

Andam, Julie. 2015. Skam. NRK.

Atalaia, Nuno, and Marianne Gunderson. “Alexa’s Monstrous Agency: The Horror of the Digital Voice Assistant.” Not available in BORA awaiting publishing.

4Chan. 2003. “What is 4chan?” 4chan. https://4chan.org/.

Gunderson, Marianne. 2017. “What is an omega? Rewriting sex and gender in omegaverse fanfiction.” [Master's thesis]. DOI:10.13140/RG.2.2.14405.47849.

Gunderson, Marianne. 2024. “The Nexus of Algorithmic Visions: Agency, Imaginaries, and the Self in Sociotechnical Situations.” [Doctoral thesis]. https://bora.uib.no/bora-xmlui/handle/11250/3161190.

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

In this short byweekly AI update, hosts Scott Rettberg and Jhave Johnston talk about the use of AI in filmmaking in places like Hollywood. While actors and writers fear AI could take over their jobs, its use in filmmaking is rapidly growing. 

References

Bateman, Justine. 2024. “Hollywood is dead, according to Justine Bateman. Here’s what comes next.” Fast Company. Effective November 2, 2024. https://www.fastcompany.com/91220089/hollywood-is-dead-according-to-justine-bateman-heres-what-comes-next. 

Gordon, Devin. 2024. “What if A.I. Is Actually Good for Hollywood?” The New York Times. Effective November 6, 2024. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/11/01/magazine/ai-hollywood-movies-cgi.html. 

Viggle. n. d. “Home.” Viggle AI. Accessed December 2, 2024. https://viggle.ai/home. 

Wonder Animation Studio. n. d. “Home.” Wonder Animation. Accessed December 2, 2024. https://wonderanimation.us/. 

Zemeckis, Robert, director. 2024. Here. Miramax. 1 hr., and 44 min. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18272208/. 

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

Mark Amerika is a visual artist, media theorist, and novelist. He is a professor of Art and Art History at the University of Colorado. In this episode, Scott and Mark will discuss Mark's career in art and academia, and some of his field-defining works.  

References

Amerika, Mark. 1997. GRAMMATRON. Alt-X. https://www.grammatron.com/  

Amerika, Mark. 1995. Sexual Blood. Black Ice.  

Amerika, Mark, Will Luers, & Chad Mossholder. 2023. Posthuman Cinema. https://posthumancinema.com/. 

Gillespie, William, Rettberg, Scott, Stratton, Dirk, & Marquadt, Frank. 1999. The Unknown [Hypertext fiction]. Web. http://unknownhypertext.com/.   

Rettberg, Scott. 2003. Destination Unknown: Experiments in the Network Novel. [Dissertation]. https://retts.net/documents/rettberg_dissertation.pdf  

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.

Back with a new episode and song, are David Jhave Johnston and Scott Rettberg. In today’s episode, they will discuss AI agents. Secret agents, travel agents, helping you with anything you need. Whether that may be spying on people or booking that holiday you wanted to go on, the AI agents can do it for you. Listen now for this new AI update.  

References

Fourney, Adam, et al. 2024. “Magentic-One: A generalist multi-agent system for solving complex tasks.” Microsoft. Effective November 4, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/articles/magentic-one-a-generalist-multi-agent-system-for-solving-complex-tasks/

Grosnit, Antoine, et al. 2024. “Large Language Models Orchestrating Structured Reasoning Achieve Kaggle Grandmaster Level.” Hugging face. Effective November 6, 2024. https://huggingface.co/papers/2411.03562. 

Lu, Yadong. 2024. “OmniParser for pure vision-based GUI agent.” Microsoft. Effective October 8, 2024. https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/articles/omniparser-for-pure-vision-based-gui-agent

Riegler, Michael Alexander. 2024. “Exploring OpenAI’s Swarm: An experimental framework for multi-agent systems.” Medium. Effective October 12, 2024. https://medium.com/@michael_79773/exploring-openais-swarm-an-experimental-framework-for-multi-agent-systems-5ba09964ca18

The Big Sleep Team. 2024. “Project Zero. From naptime to big sleep: Using large language models to catch vulnerabilities in real-world code.” Google Project Zero. Effective November 1, 2024. https://googleprojectzero.blogspot.com/2024/10/from-naptime-to-big-sleep.html#bigsleepteam

This work was partially supported by the Research Council of Norway Centres of Excellence, project number 332643, Center for Digital Narrative.