Story I/O (input/output) is an intensive, one-day lab exploring how artificial intelligence is transforming the forms, functions, and futures of storytelling. Led by Columbia DSL and co-presented with the School of Engineering and Applied Science and the Narrative Intelligence Lab, the convening brings artists, engineers, designers, and scholars into a day of shared inquiry.
Framed around the concept of Input / Output, the day asks:
What do we feed our systems?
What do they return to us?
And how does that exchange reshape authorship, agency, imagination, and responsibility?
Special guest speakers include Dr. Lydia Chilton (Human-Computer Interaction, Columbia Engineering), Dennis Yi Tenen (English and Comparative Literature, Narrative Intelligence Lab), Lance Weiler (School of the Arts, Columbia DSL), and Shar Simpson (School of the Arts, Columbia DSL) who will ground the conversation in research at the intersection of AI, computation, and narrative systems.
The day blends theory with hands-on experimentation. Participants will work in small, interdisciplinary teams to prototype story systems using AI tools–exploring generative writing, agentic agents, playable media, and speculative design frameworks. Rather than a lecture-driven format, Story I/O unfolds in a horizontal learning environment, where expertise circulates across disciplines and participants co-create knowledge through making.
Throughout the day, we will examine:
The creative affordances of generative AI in storytelling and design
Ethical questions around authorship, bias, labor, and machine collaboration
AI as co-author, performer, worldbuilder, and critic
New forms of playable, interactive, and agentic narrative
How story systems can be prototyped, tested, and iterated in public
By the end of the day, teams will share rapid prototypes that explore AI not simply as a tool, but as a creative infrastructure—one that challenges how stories are imagined, built, distributed, and experienced.
Story I/O positions storytelling as a live interface between human intention and machine response. It is both a critical conversation and a working lab—an invitation to reimagine what narrative becomes when input and output blur.
Space is limited so make sure to register early using the ticketing button above.