Kim Willsher, The Guardian; Molière Ex Machina: AI used to create ‘new work’ by beloved French playwright
"Molière is to the French what Shakespeare is to the English: the last word in historical literature, drama, wit and satire.
Now, more than 350 years after his death, the 17th-century dramatist has been revived after scholars at the Sorbonne University in Paris used artificial intelligence to help write an experimental play in his style.
L’Astrologue ou les Faux Présages (The Astrologer, or False Omens), a three-act comedy, made its debut at the Royal Opera at the Château de Versailles last week.
The two-hour play tells the story of a wealthy bourgeois Parisian who, under the instruction of a charlatan astrologer called Pseudoramus, insists his daughter Lucile marry a debt-ridden and elderly wigmaker.
While the theme could well have been dreamed up by Molière, the dialogue, music, costumes and scenery were all created with the help of a French AI tool called Le Chat (The Cat).
A group of researchers at the Sorbonne worked on the project, called Molière Ex Machina, for two and a half years. The team included a three-person group of artists and researchers called Obvious."
