Creative AI and the Experience of Stories: Creative AI and Responses to Narratives

Abstract

For many decades, digital technologies have assisted humans in producing artworks and entertainment products. The role of digital technologies in these fields, however, is not limited to serving as a tool to implement human ideas. Artificial intelligence (AI) could lead to technology becoming a creator itself. Our focus here is on stories created by AI. We assume that the information that a fictional story was created by AI leads to a distancing response. This psychological distancing should go along with feelings of eeriness and should prevent recipients from being transported into the story world and from sharing the story with others. We conducted two experiments and examined user responses to fictional stories supposedly written by AI (versus a human author). Results of Experiment 1 (N = 321) suggest that the information that a short story was written by an AI has no significant effect on eeriness or the willingness to share. However, it reduces the recipients' experience of being transported into the story world. Experiment 2 (N = 489) replicates this finding within a 2 (author: AI vs. human) x 2 (genre: contemporary fiction vs. science fiction) design. Again, AI as an author reduced transportation. This effect was qualified by an interaction with story genre. The authorship effect disappeared when the narrative was a science fiction story.

Algorithmic Bias in Image-Generating Artificial Intelligence: Prevalence and User Perceptions

“…At the same time, scientists have begun to examine how image-generating AI is perceived by recipients. Initial research focused on how AI source information alters the aesthetic appreciation of artworks (Di Dio et al, 2023;Messingschlager & Appel, 2023;Oksanen et al, 2023). We connected this relatively young line of research to scientific work on algorithmic bias, which has been a concern for many in the past years (e.g., Angwin et al, 2016;Courtland, 2018).…”

“…When it comes to the responses to algorithmic bias in image-generating AI, the perceptions of AI can influence how its pictures are evaluated (Messingschlager & Appel, 2023;Oksanen et al, 2023). Therefore, users' perceptions of the AI as objective could lead to the assumption that its' pictures are unaffected by personal opinions.…”