January 30, 2025
The GIST Editors' notes
This text has been reviewed in response to Science X's editorial course of and insurance policies. Editors have highlighted the next attributes whereas making certain the content material's credibility:
fact-checked
respected information company
proofread
New play takes on OpenAI drama and AI's existential questions

Revolutionize humanity or destroy it? Playwright Matthew Gasda's characters, impressed by OpenAI and its well-known ChatGPT, grapple with existential questions in regards to the path of synthetic intelligence.
"Doomers," which opens in New York from Friday and can play in a number of venues, is impressed by the dramatic firing of Sam Altman in November 2023 from OpenAI, the AI analysis firm he co-founded eight years earlier.
Out of the blue, the board of administrators sacked the younger government over his lack of transparency and his headstrong need to push out new merchandise at breakneck velocity, even when this meant relegating any security considerations to the background.
After just a few days of disaster, marked by intense strain from the group's shareholders, together with Microsoft, Altman was reinstated and virtually all the board was changed.
"My dramatic instincts kicked in" once I first heard in regards to the story, recalled Gasda, an writer whose a number of performs have been observed on the choice New York theater scene.
"At first I purely thought it was an excellent story, however then I began to analysis and meet folks within the enterprise, and I understood that there are individuals who actually really feel just like the destiny of the world is of their palms," he stated.
For the reason that launch of ChatGPT in November 2022, AI has been an everyday presence in modern theater, typically embodied by some type of technological creature, human-like robotic or in any other case.
Final yr, "McNeal," starring Oscar-winning actor Robert Downey Jr, was hailed for its questioning of the usage of AI within the inventive course of.
However "Doomers" goes additional, seizing a vital, high-profile second within the current historical past of AI to show it into a mirrored image on its future and on the collision between cash, expertise, energy and constructing an ideal world.
Within the first act, Seth, a personality portraying Sam Altman, freshly fired, asserts his imaginative and prescient of AI's inescapable march to a number of executives, mocking their unease.
The second half options board members stricken by the implications of their resolution to dismiss Seth.
In each episodes, the play, which shall be carried out in OpenAI's hometown San Francisco in March, affords no approach out, with the characters in the end not taking a stand on the laborious questions.
"That's very intentional," stated Gasda.
"The one decision… is that there's no rational approach of actually grappling with the implications of this. Nobody breaks by means of the doorways and solves the issue for them."
The playwright held a number of readings with AI professionals to make sure the accuracy of dialogues and conditions.
He stated that his performs typically entice the tech group, and expects them to make up a giant a part of the viewers for "Doomers."
"I'm attempting to talk to each audiences," connoisseurs and laymen alike. "I need individuals who don't give it some thought to begin interested by it," stated Gasda.
© 2025 AFP
Quotation: New play takes on OpenAI drama and AI's existential questions (2025, January 30) retrieved 30 January 2025 from https://techxplore.com/information/2025-01-play-openai-drama-ai-existential.html This doc is topic to copyright. Other than any truthful dealing for the aim of personal research or analysis, no half could also be reproduced with out the written permission. The content material is offered for info functions solely.
Discover additional
Sam Altman returns to OpenAI board months after disaster shares
Feedback to editors
