Improv and AI

A skeptical centrist's thoughts

Photo by Robo Wunderkind on Unsplash

A reader asked me to write about improv and AI.

What do I think of the idea of an AI agent doing improv?

My short answer is that using an AI bot for improv misses the point. The central currency of improv is two or more human beings interacting. Anything that takes away from this — including the “human being” part —- makes it less like improv.

My Thoughts On AI In General

Many of my friends abhor AI and any mention of it. It’s the enemy, here to destroy us, one way or the other. That’s not how I feel.

I’m a boring centrist by nature. My initial emotional reaction to ANYTHING is basically “It’s not an emergency.” Meaning I rarely think anything is certain destruction or a miraculous panacea.

I am of the “AI is tool - it’s how you use it” camp.

Though I admit I don’t use it very much. It’s just an resource-expensive search engine from what I can see. I like writing my own columns (witness the many typos and grammatical mistakes). I like hand-coding my PHP and HTML. I’ve conversed with ChatGPT but found it to be a cloying thirsty yes-man.

I write my own email replies. I prefer clicking through search results to the wikipedia page rather than reading the AI-generated summaries.

I’m also morally opposed to generative AI for creative ends — so I wouldn’t use it to make graphics or songs or videos.

But I’m theoretically open to AI doing SOMETHING, once someone finds a use for it.

AI As An Improv Gimmick

A lot of proposed AI uses in theater feel like gimmicks.

I was asked my thoughts on an improv show where animators drew backgrounds as people improvised. This was done by humans. It was impressive, but like having a laser light show above a baseball game - nothing to do with the business at hand. Even if you had AI generate backgrounds for improv shows, I don’t feel that’s adding any substantive.

Matt Cutler from UCB NY was doing a show called MattGPT where he made AI clones of himself do an improv set. I saw it at Edinburgh Improv Fest, it was really funny and fun. Here’s the show description from when he did it at Das Improv Fest.

Gimmick shows are fun, but are not the main course.

AI As Practice Partner

What if we could use AI as an improv practice partner? Like, you could take an improv class and then practice the exercises at home with AI. That would be way cheaper than taking a million classes. And it’d be accessible for folks who don’t live near an improv theater.

This sounds promising to me. AI could supplement the human experience instead of a replacement for it. It might help practice an isolated communication exercises.

So, yeah, maybe AI could help practice.

I tried doing scenes with an improv AI bot. The bot was impressive at demonstrating certain improv principles. It clearly yes-anded me. It noticed “unusual things” impressively well. I could see it doing improv and making good decisions about what was likely funny.

But I never really felt like I was talking to anyone. I was choosing my words very carefully so I could be understood. I had to frame up my ideas really clearly if I wanted the bot to understand me.

It made me think: what makes AI bad at improv?

Two ways I can think of: AI misses nonverbal communication and AI misses context switches.

AI: Bad At Nonverbal Communcation

AI misses a TON of non verbal communication. It ignores your tone.

A lot of human improv training is getting people to listen more deeply than just the words being said. HOW are they being said? What’s the body language? What’s the facial expression? Did the tone change?

I’m thinking of an exercise I was taught called “NUMBERS.” You can only say numbers and only say them in order.

So one person starts the scene like “One, two. Three?”

And the other person might respond. “Four! Five six seven eight. (sigh) Nine.”

Could AI do the NUMBERS exercise with a person? Not that I’ve seen.

AI: Misses Context

Even harder, AI is not as good as improvisers at switching contexts.

Switching contexts is a HUGE part of an improv show. It’s maybe the hardest to teach and explain.

Context switch: location

Simplest version of switching context is when someone decides on a location very late in a scene. Like two people are having a heartfelt conversation and then someone enters the scenes and reveals this talk has been happening on the floor of the stock market the whole time.

Would AI handle this location change?

Context switch: this right here is made up

A more subtle context switch: that some improv lines are calling out that they are improvised.

First of all, you sometimes say something that is only interesting because the audience knows you’re makign it up right then. Like when someone does a deliberately silly name. You say “you know my brothers Billy and …. also Billy.”

That is enjoyable ONLY because the audience knows it was just made up. It’s almost like these lines are in italics.

Could AI sense when there is a “made up” context?

Context switch: this is a reference to current events

Or you do a scene that makes a reference to current events. Not a scene. But a stray line.

Like someone will be doing a scene and say “I feel like I’m gonna get fired.” And then maybe add on “Or maybe dragged out of here by the police! They can do it now, you know.” Then they add “This is 2030, remember!”

Context switch: Evolving back story

But the hardest context switch is that improvisers are constantly rewriting each other’s personal history.

It’s part of the fun and it’s REALLY HARD TO TRACK.

Like someone starts a scene where they are worried about a job interview, so the character play-act the job interview.

And IN the play-acting of the job interview it’s clear that one of the characters has a crush on the other.

And maybe they also reveal that one of the characters is the son of the owner of the company.

Could AI track all that while improvising with a person?

AI with AI?

Could AI improvise well with AI? I bet it could! It could define its own rules for communication, it would know what to expect.

It would actually be very funny for me to have an all-AI troupe report “We can’t improvise with humans. They do improv wrong.” It would be an incredibly human reaction for AI bots to blame their struggles with improv on the other party.

What Is It About AI?

A parting thought. What is it about AI that fascinates us? It reminds me of when personal computers showed up in the early 1980s. Ads for computers tried to insist that computers were going to make our lives easier but the truth is that those early computers were good for games and that’s kind of it.

Every programming example showed you how to make a recipe book, but really no one kept their recipes on a computer.

I would say the first big use of personal computers was in the late 1980s with word processing. And then email in the early 1990s. And then the internet which was largely used as an information resource (reading the news, looking up movie times)!

Today it feels similar with AI. Everyone is just trying AI with every problem we have before they even have a notion that it’s a good fit.

My AI Improv

Even I tried to make an automatic improv, of sorts. Here’s my very unfinished attempt at an INTERACTIVE FICTION IMPROV scene, done in like 2012 or something.

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Plugs

• The World’s Greatest Improv School: The improv school I run with Jim Woods and Sarah Claspell. We’ve got classes online, in LA and even a few in NYC! You can join our mailing list if you want our weekly announcement of shows.

• How to Be The Greatest Improviser On Earth - My improv book, available at Amazon. Kindle or print (also on my web site for more if you don’t want to buy from Amazon). It’s a hodge-podge of advice I wrote in 2016 about doing improv. If you’re short of funds and want a free PDF version just email me and I’ll send it over.