One of the truly great events at last year's WORD Festival was the interactive AI vs Librarians at Tūranga, where the team of four Reading Advisors pitted their wits against Chat GPT to give a highly excited audience book recommendations (the vote was resoundingly for the humans). This year the team is back with a new event: Romancing AI.
In a world at turns enamoured and ill at ease with the emergence of Artificial Intelligence in all things, our intrepid explorers thought they'd have some fun combining AI and romance novels to see what the machine could come up with. If the practice sessions are anything to go by, it's going to be a hoot!
At the moment AI and Romance literature are two very topical subjects. Readers Advisory Librarian Eamonn Redmond says they wanted to explore AI art because it seems to be this year's big technological topic: controversial as it's perceived as a threat to traditional art. Librarians, says Eamonn, see in our everyday interactions how popular romance novels are. Collen Hoover, anyone?
It seemed like a fun idea to envision a game that incorporates AI to help create and write the characters and meet-cute of a romance novel and invite the audience to play around with AI art to create fun book covers. The team of helpless romantics, Eamonn, Brian and Nicole, are not experts in AI in any way, so it has been 'very much a learn as we go process'.
As a bonus, there will be a fun and brief history of the romance genre and spot prizes to give away for audience participation.
Can artificial intelligence ever rival emotional intelligence? Come along, get roped in, and have some fun with the romantics of Tūranga.
Romancing AI is a free event, on Friday 30 August in TSB Space on Hapori | Community, Level One at Tūranga.
More for book lovers
Stuck for something to read? Ask our team of Readers' Advisory Librarians for a reading recommendation, or check out our fiction genre guides:
- Request reading recommendations - Tell us your reading "must haves" and we'll pair you up with your perfect match (book, that is)
- Romance reading guide
Add a comment to: WORD Christchurch: Librarians Romancing AI