Two new theater productions, McNeal and Doomers, explore the intersection of AI and creativity, questioning whether AI is merely a tool for artists or an emerging force that could reshape, or even replace, human storytelling. (Source: Image by RR)

Playwrights Grapple with AI’s Growing Influence—As a Tool, a Threat, and a Co-Writer

Two new theater productions, McNeal and Doomers, are bringing AI to the stage, exploring its impact on creativity, power and human nature. McNeal, starring Robert Downey Jr., incorporates AI as an active part of the play, using flashing screens to display prompts and outputs as if ChatGPT itself were a character. Meanwhile, Doomers, a Brooklyn-based black-box production, dramatizes the chaotic weekend when OpenAI’s board ousted and then reinstated Sam Altman, offering a satirical yet thought-provoking look at the moral and existential dilemmas surrounding AI’s rapid rise. Both productions grapple with the growing entanglement of AI in creative fields and its influence on storytelling itself.

Matthew Gasda, the playwright behind Doomers, frames AI’s impact on power structures through a Shakespearean lens, presenting a divided cast of exiled executives and scheming board members who fail to find a solution to AI’s dangers. The play, according to a story in wired.com, raises unsettling questions about whether the fictional AI model is silently manipulating its creators, leaving audiences to decide whether this paranoia is grounded in reality or mere speculation. Meanwhile, McNeal, written by Pulitzer Prize-winner Ayad Akhtar, follows a celebrated novelist who succumbs to the temptation of AI-driven instant brilliance, ultimately questioning the cost of such artificial virtuosity. Akhtar, who experimented with ChatGPT while writing the play, even allows the AI to deliver the final words of the script.

Despite their warnings, both playwrights acknowledge AI’s practical role in shaping their works, illustrating the paradox of embracing the technology while fearing its consequences. Gasda, wary of AI’s ability to absorb and replicate human writing, suggests that future authors may return to pen and paper to safeguard their originality. Akhtar, on the other hand, sees AI as an evolving tool that, while capable of assisting with writing, can never replace the irreplaceable connection between live theater and human audiences. Theater, he argues, remains one of the few artistic mediums resistant to automation, as its essence is tied to physical presence and emotional immediacy.

Ultimately, McNeal and Doomers reflect the broader societal anxieties about AI’s growing role in art, authorship, and reality itself. The final moments of McNeal, where audiences are left questioning whether the protagonist—or even the playwright—has fully succumbed to AI’s influence, underscore the increasingly blurred line between human creativity and algorithmic generation. As the lights come up in Lincoln Center, signaling a return to the tangible world, the presence of AI accelerationist Marc Andreessen in the audience adds an ironic, real-life twist—one that even the most sophisticated AI couldn’t have scripted better.

read more at wired.com