The idea of keeping the “human in the loop” is offered as a way to make AI “human-centered” and to safeguard against AI mischief, but how does being in a loop with AI shape our communication with each other? Over the last 20 years, Allen Riley created dozens of interactive artworks that explore mediated communication with youth and adults in venues including performance spaces, museums, festivals, and schools. He discusses three recent projects that explore how large language models affect interpersonal communication.

The first project is an imaginative storytelling game called Popcorn Movie in which players are constantly interrupted by LLM summaries as they attempt to co-create a story together. Next, he adapts the game into a satirical live performance titled Human Feedback in which an LLM facilitates a panel discussion among people who do not know what they are talking about. In a third iteration titled The Last Chat, Riley reimagines the LLM as a social operating system.

Language models are not grounded in the practical circumstances in which we use them. As a result, they drift and hallucinate. When players hear an AI summary, its semantic noise becomes part of their shared reality, and the story spirals in on itself. Players navigate changing and often humorous conditions of coherence and confusion. He argues that this is an essential literacy for critical engagement with LLMs. Allen Riley proposes an alternative way of thinking and playing with AI as a feedback channel for socially interactive creative projects that critically play with AI.

Allen Riley is an artist and curator who specializes in socially interactive media. He designs hands-on learning pedagogy at Beam Center and builds arcade games as a form of public art with Arcade Commons. Riley’s artwork has been presented at the Smithsonian American Art Museum, Slamdance Film Festival, and the Museum of the Moving Image. He received an MFA in Electronic Integrated Arts from the New York State College of Ceramics and is a PhD candidate in Film & Digital Media at UC Santa Cruz.

This event is presented by The Humanities Institute’s ± AI Initiative