Episode 43: Jim Phelan & Stefan Iversen — OpenAI’s “AI, Metafiction, and Grief”

Project Narrative

In this episode of the Project Narrative Podcast, Jim Phelan and Stefan Iversen discuss a story generated by artificial intelligence; more specifically, the story comes from the system operated by OpenAI, in response to the prompt: “please write a metafictional literary short story about AI and grief.” Stefan Iversen is Associate Professor in the School of Communication and Culture at Aarhus University in Denmark. Iversen directs the PhD program in Art, Literature, and Cultural Studies. Iversen’s many areas of expertise include narrative and narrative theory, rhetoric, Danish literature, and digital media. Iversen has done important and influential work in unnatural narratology, rhetorical approach to fictionality, and rhetoric in the public sphere. His recent books include Quantified Storytelling: A Narrative Analysis of Metrics on Social Media, co-authored with Alexandra Georgakopoulou and Carsten Stage. Publications also include the co-edited collection, Fictionality and Literature: Core Concepts Revisited, and the forthcoming book in the Ohio State series on the theory and interpretation of narrative, Disrupting Narrative Rhetoric: Experimental Fictionality on Digital Platforms.