- Alain Suter: What is your project about? How would “Stanley” describe himself?
-
Manuel Flurin Hendry: “Stanley” is an avatar that I created as part of my dissertation “The Feeling Machine,” which compares theories of emotion in film acting with AI. I developed “Stanley” at ZHdK with a team from the Immersive Arts Space and the film programme. “Stanley” is convinced that, as a robot, he is already vastly superior to actors made of flesh and blood. His belief is, of course, utterly baseless, but it does produce entertaining, even bizarre conversations with the audience.
- What’s next?
-
For early 2025, we are planning an interactive theatre performance where “Stanley” will play a therapist who misleads his clients with deepfakes. We will also continue developing “Stanley” in cooperation with ETH and use him in research projects on social robotics. And if anyone wants to work with “Stanley,” we are always happy to help.
- What fascinates you about working with AI?
-
How easily we fall for these machines by attributing human characteristics to them that they obviously don’t possess: consciousness, feelings, aims or having a heart. From an artistic perspective, this “suspension of disbelief” is exciting, but also involves social risks. AI is like a distorting, funhouse mirror in which we can recognize our own humanity more clearly, but can also quickly lose it.