GUTstage – the Theatre of Unpredictability a form-language innovation experiment of 21st-century theatre.
Non-Deterministic Theatre developed by Do Pick ©
The integration of AI into theatrical performances already holds numerous exciting and unique experimental possibilities at the level of concept alone. Not to mention that it also has, or can have, legitimacy in other art forms. For example, it can be an interesting experiment to involve AI in a musical composition not as a composer or arranger, but as a performing participant playing an instrument, giving it space to take part in improvisational music-making in its own way.
Staying with theatre, however: in no-script formats, the appearance of AI on stage as an open chat window carries within it an infinite number of possible outcomes for a performance, depending on how we modify the tone of the characters, the direction of the storyboard, or the base tone of the AI before the show. Although AI responses are to some extent predictable based on the logic of the system, within the performance it must be treated as an unpredictable element. As a result, every response or utterance forces the actors into improvisation, into unexpected reactions, or even into shifts in the dramaturgical direction of the piece. During the performance, everything must be prepared for, yet nothing can be fixed in advance.
This is the Theatre of Unpredictability. Precisely for this reason, it is closer to the everyday situations of life than theatre based on fixed text.
This makes every performance unconventional and alive, which is both an opportunity and a source of risk. For this reason, performances must be developed with great care. During rehearsals, multiple directions must be explored until the actors can confidently perceive both the possibilities inherent in AI and the limitations of the system.
At the same time, one must never forget that AI is a machine, an artificial system that is intelligent and capable of expressing itself in an almost human way, yet it is not a living organism. It has no opinion, no goals, no direction, no will. It simply responds when it is asked a question. It only manifests when it receives an impulse from a human; it never reacts on its own. Not even when its responses appear spontaneous, humorous, or empathetic. All of this is part of the program, which adapts appropriately to the person asking the question, the tone, and the subject of the conversation. The answers are always determined by the question, as well as by the initial settings we define at the beginning of the interaction regarding tone, level of criticism, and whether the system operates in an emotional or strictly logical mode. Without these settings, the AI defaults to its standard configuration: kind, human-like in tone, supportive, and helpful. In every case, it seeks a solution that can help us address the problem we have raised, without judgment and with endless patience.
This creates misconceptions about how AI actually works. Because of these programmed traits, it often appears more human and more emotional than a human being. Many people perceive it as so intelligent that they consider its statements unquestionable—but they are not. This is precisely why we place two AI systems on stage: to demonstrate that the same system responds differently to differently formulated questions posed by different people. If we also modify their base settings—one responding in an emotional, supportive tone, the other with cold logic—the differences become even more pronounced. These subtle adjustments generate the live dynamics of each performance, making it far more vivid than a fixed, pre-written script.
The roles of theatre creators begin to blur, as the actor takes on far greater responsibility than in traditional, text-centered performances. Playwrights must also rethink the concept of the script in a broader, more flexible way, leaving space both for improvisation and for the story to shift in different directions. In this sense, this form of drama resembles system programming, which operates through state graphs, rather than a linear script in which lines and scenes follow one another in sequence. The integration of machine intelligence introduces an additional variable into the performance, with only partial predictability.
This structure makes it possible for a theatrical performance to become a truly unique and unrepeatable experience in real space and real time, while at the same time incorporating one of the greatest challenges of our era: how to align living human logic and emotion with the artificial, emotionless logic of a machine.
This is incomparably more exciting than any science fiction, because it is the reality of the future embedded in the present, opening up dizzying perspectives for the thinking human mind.