The Dark Empath's Shadow: creative practice and collaborative screenwriting with AI

This thesis reflects on a two-year creative journey of collaborating with artificial intelligence (AI) on the development of a television pilot script. The study explores the opportunities and challenges of using AI as a creative partner, focusing on the essential role of human oversight and the development of creative guardrails. Through a series of smaller writing tasks, the paper details the process of training the AI, refining its outputs, and overcoming its limitations, such as a tendency towards generic, wholesome content and the occurrence of hallucinations. The research draws on existing scholarship, including Susan Cake's work on AI as a collaborative tool for script development, and evaluates the effectiveness of specific writing concepts including the Dan Harmon Story Circle when used with AI. The paper contrasts AI-generated feedback with the more nuanced and contextually rich insights provided by human academic mentors, highlighting the irreplaceable value of human experience and critical judgment in the creative process. The research further presents the findings of a participant study, which shows a mixed but overall positive reception to AI's utility for brainstorming and efficiency, while also noting its limitations in capturing a unique writer's voice. The thesis concludes that AI serves as a valuable but imperfect assistant, with its successful integration into creative writing depending entirely on the writer's ability to provide clear guidance, critically refine the output, and infuse the work with genuine human creativity. The paper ultimately reinforces the position that the writer, with their unique perspective and emotional depth, remains at the heart of every story.