audio<\/a>-based (though there is a text mode for those who want it), with users speaking to the AI characters to try and accomplish the goal or task at hand. The result is surprisingly emotional, with the rush of having La La Stardust guess the right word, or a sense of relief when \u201cLarry\u201d disengages the bomb in the diner.<\/p>\n\n\t\u201cThe thing that\u2019s kind of engaging about this idea, is you are getting into a conversation,\u201d Purcell says. There is something weird about the audio part of it all. When you are just talking, it makes it feel like it\u2019s okay to pretend, it\u2019s a little childlike in a weird way, you start to kind of buy into this thing. So I think for us, what we thought about is, what are interactive moments that could be really interesting? The goal with these is, ultimately, multi-chapter narratives which will be something we want to do.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cMy thesis about this is that younger people, who are already more performative when it comes to media, they\u2019re already on camera a lot more, is that I think they\u2019re going to want to be more active and more participatory in things,\u201d he adds.<\/p>\n
\n\tAnd, surprisingly for a startup built on AI technology, humans are at the center of what they are building. Each game, world, and character is created by a person, the rules are set by the creator, the AI is in service of the story.<\/p>\n
\n\tIt\u2019s a contrast to the giant LLMs, which are capable of a lot, but require a lot of work on the user\u2019s part to get there.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cI think that\u2019s the part that kind of like people are missing right now, when something is available and it\u2019s so big and so wide open, it\u2019s only once you start putting boxes on it that it starts to reveal itself as content,\u201d Purcell says.<\/p>\n
\n\tTake the alien docking experience. When The Hollywood Reporter recently played it, it was a bribe of freshly-baked Levain cookies that ultimately secured passage to the port. But everyone else\u2019s experience will be uniquely their own, by design.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cKevin made that in four hours, it was his idea, and I don\u2019t think an AI just coming up with that on its own would have been nearly as fun,\u201d Purcell says. \u201cIt may have gotten somewhere, but it\u2019ll start to feel a little cliched.I am a big believer that sure, AI will get better at making stuff, but I still think the human individual story and the spark will add something to it for a very long time. I think that\u2019s one area where even if the tools get great, the storytelling that a person has based on their background and their life and their experience is always going to bring something unique to it.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tThe goal is to have a regular cadence of experiences, some wholly original and some built on a central premise. The game show, for example, can have fresh clues and contestants every day, or Change My Mind can see the user debate an AI competitor on a fresh topic that changes frequently. The company has raised some capital from the a16z speedrom accelerator program, but are early in the process of seeking investors, while also plotting how to monetize And Then. <\/p>\n
\n\tAdvertising may be a part of that, as could be subscriptions (i.e. in a multi-part story, the first few installments could be free with future versions payalled).<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cOne thing that\u2019s really interesting about the game show, and I think there\u2019s a real fine line to thread here, is that we can deliver in an experience an advertising message that feels like it\u2019s very much part of the experience and doesn\u2019t feel like you\u2019re jumping out into having a host read something that\u2019s a minute long,\u201d Purcell says. \u201cThe host of that game show could easily say, today\u2019s show is brought to you by x, and it\u2019s like a mini thing that\u2019s part of a game that you can still deliver for free, but I think you can do that in a programmatic, interesting way that makes it feel like it\u2019s immersive.\u201d<\/p>\n
\n\tPurcell frames the emergence of AI tech as part of a longer-term trend in media. Just as platforms like YouTube and TikTok have democratized how content gets distributed, he believes that AI tools will democratize how content gets created. But they also want creative people to jump in the pool and stretch their storytelling muscles.<\/p>\n
\n\t\u201cWe want the talent aspect of this to feel open to people that have done creative work in other places,\u201d Purcell says. \u201cI know just because it\u2019s AI, that\u2019ll turn off a ton of people in the first place, but the goal is really how to put the talent first in a big way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Imagine you are sitting in a diner, and a man walks in with a bomb. You have five…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":272015,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[21],"tags":[691,738,5157,158,67,132,68,924],"class_list":{"0":"post-272014","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-audio","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us","15":"tag-video-games"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115304929904196842","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272014"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272014\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/272015"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}