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I have spent the last fifteen years building AI systems that are meant to enable new forms of storytelling. In recent years, I’ve been making tools to help designers author, control, and understand such systems. And in my latest work, these designers are themselves AI systems.
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These days, I’m hacking away at Sifty, a software studio specializing in author-centric AI systems. Our first offering is Viv, an engine for emergent narrative.
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I earned a PhD in Computational Media from UC Santa Cruz in 2018, where I was a member of the Expressive Intelligence Studio. My thesis, Curating Simulated Storyworlds, is about detecting stories that emerge in complex systems like computer simulations—a task I called story sifting. I have also carried out research in conversational AI, discovery tools, and the history of computational media. My 50+ academic publications are all available here.
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Past projects include: Bad News, a work of AI-assisted immersive theater that won the IndieCade 2016 Audience Choice Award; Sheldon County, a proof-of-concept AI-generated radio drama that was featured on BBC Radio in 2018; and Sienna, a chatbot that engages email scammers to waste their time. My work has been featured in venues such as The Guardian, The Verge, The Register, Vice, New Scientist, and Rolling Stone.
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I’m also the proprietor of Aleator Press, an indie press and art dealer specializing in computer-generated literature and early generative art. Our highlight release is Wendit Tnce Inf, a letterpress book of computer-generated prose poems by Allison Parrish. Aleator Press publications are held in special collections at UC Berkeley and Mary Washington University, and by Anne & Michael Spalter and Ragnar Digital, the foremost private collections in this area. As a dealer, we have handled early pieces by artists such as Harold Cohen.
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I live in Minneapolis with my wife, Nina, and our two kids.
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Want to get in touch? Feel free to send an email!
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