Playwright deploys AI in new work

Playwright Ayad Akhtar wants to challenge the notion that artificial intelligence threatens human creativity, even deploying large language models to help write his latest work. McNeal, currently running at the Lincoln Center Theater in New York, marks Robert Downey Jr.’s return to the stage after 40 years, in a role that explores a celebrated novelist’s problematic fascination with the technology that promises to change everything.

Asked whether the rapid advance of machine learning represents a creative apocalypse, the play’s director told The Atlantic that to make art is “to participate in something uniquely human” — yet added: “Soon we’ll be having conversations about whether Claude is a better artist than ChatGPT.”