The Art of the Future Project at the Atlantic Council’s Brent Scowcroft Center on International Security seeks playwrights and writers to submit 10-minute plays inspired by military science-fiction story A Visit to Weizenbaum, by Jamie Metzl. A Visit tells the story of a soldier at an isolated base who is grappling with the very nature of what it means to be human in a war where artificial intelligence (AI) and remote-operated robots define conflict.
The Atlantic Council, a non-partisan think tank, promotes constructive leadership and engagement in international affairs based on the Atlantic Community's central role in meeting global challenges.
Traditional approaches to understanding an issue as complicated as AI and war can obfuscate the critical elements necessary to articulate new codes of ethics and prepare society for a jump in technological and human capabilities. The Atlantic Council believes the immersive and imaginative environment of the stage will ensure that human nature is not abandoned in discerning the nature of warfare in the future.
A panel of readers will select entries deemed “finalists”, from which playwright George Brant will determine the winner of this crowd-sourced contest. Brant’s work GROUNDED won the 2016 Lucille Lortel Award for Outstanding Solo Production during its run at the Public Theatre in New York, and his works have been performed throughout the US and the UK.
The submission deadline is June 26, and the winner will be announced in late July.
The winning entry will be performed during a symposium in London in November 2017 in collaboration with the Royal United Services Institute, a think tank in London, and Central Saint Martins. The conference will center on the issues surrounding AI and bring together thought leaders from an array of academic fields. In between conference panels, the winning play will be performed, along with several other commissioned theater productions. The winner of this crowd-sourced contest will receive a $1,000 honorarium.
There is no fee to enter the contest.
For more information about the contest, and to submit scripts, please visit our website: http://artoffuturewarfare.org/featured-challenge/
The story A Visit to Weizenbaum can be found on page 29 of the anthology War Stories from the Future, which can be accessed at this link: http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/images/publications/War_Stories_from_the_Future.pdf