Sizhou Chen and team built AI actors that can improvise theater performances:

Given a simple topic, the framework generates a narrative blueprint, guiding the subsequent improvisational performance. During the online performance, each actor is given an autonomous mind. This means that actors can make independent decisions based on their own background, goals, and emotional state. In addition to conversations with other actors, their decisions can also change the state of scene props through actions such as opening a letter or picking up a weapon.

We've mostly thought of AI as a generation tool. Give it a prompt, get back text or code or images.

But this is different. These AI agents aren't just writing scripts - they're performing them. Autonomous actors improvising in real-time, making independent decisions based on their goals and emotional states.

It's a shift from deterministic creation to probabilistic performance. Instead of "generate this," it's "act this out."

The clever bit is separating "offline planning" from "online performance." First, AI agents collaborate to create a narrative blueprint - characters, goals, setting, plot points. Then different AI actors improvise their way through the story in real-time.

You're not writing a perfect script anymore. You're designing conditions for compelling stories to emerge. Less writer, more director and world-builder.

But how do you design for emergent narrative? If the agents are truly autonomous, the story could go anywhere. You can set up the stage and motivations, but you can't control what happens.

The designer becomes an architect of systems that guide rather than script outcomes. Building the entire theater and the troupe, not just the characters.