Presentation
Making Story Worlds Feel Alive: Embedded Intelligence and Authored Agency in Themed Entertainment
DescriptionA guest in a theme park does not care whether a character’s awareness comes from embedded sensing, edge inference, performer control, or a robust nonlinear show-control infrastructure; they care whether the story world noticed them, responded to them, and made them feel part of the experience. This talk looks at themed entertainment as one of the strangest and most demanding places to make emerging technology work: in public, in real time, around performers, guests, crowds, weather, safety, operations, and tightly protected stories, with every experience expected to feel effortless and all evidence of the technology disappearing into the magic. Meeting that challenge shifts the research question from “can AI generate content?” to “how can emerging technologies support authored agency in physical story worlds?” Drawing on real-world examples involving Disney and Universal Parks, Sesame Workshop, Carnival Cruise Line, and related location-based entertainment contexts, the talk examines how emerging technologies are translated into public experiences where responsiveness, safety, reliability, brand trust, and emotional believability must all coexist. In this context, state of the art becomes less about unconstrained generative systems and more about designing responsive systems that allow a story world to recognize what is happening around it, respond within authored guardrails, and preserve the guest’s belief in the world. Looking ahead, the talk considers how AI and distributed intelligence may help these environments better understand context, support performers, personalize moments, and adapt in real time.
Event Type
Research Special Session
TimeTuesday, July 282:00pm - 2:30pm PDT
LocationMtg Room 201A
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