Lucy’s Never-Ending Story
“The emotional relationships we build with fictional characters do not have to fade away when the credits roll.”
Lucy’s story began as a deep exploration into the storytelling possibilities of virtual reality, where you can engage in real time with an interactive character. We had many key questions: Could we make you feel like a child again? Could we cast you into a role and expect you to engage with Lucy without instruction and in stride with the story? What does it mean to interact with a fictional VR character whose actions and emotions you can influence and who will remember you?
Over four years, we were able to answer these questions and ultimately build an immersive VR journey with Lucy, Wolves in the Walls, that has been recognized for significantly advancing the state of interactive media. We observed audiences more than just helping Lucy, but effortlessly bonding with her, like a sister or a friend.
The techniques and responses were so compelling that we didn’t want to stop with VR, so we expanded Lucy into multiple platforms, from Instagram to Twitch to Google Video, to build a never-ending story across everyday technologies that weave our audience into Lucy’s life. We hoped to demonstrate that the emotional relationships we build with fictional characters do not have to fade away when the credits roll.
Lucy on Video Chat w/ Friends
To accomplish this, we created a holistic backstory for Lucy that develops over a full year, building up her and the audience from acquaintances to friends to confidantes over time and experience.
We wanted to maintain Lucy’s authenticity and sense of being as a character, so we combined technologies like GPT-3 with custom-built artificial intelligence tools that trained her voice, dialogue, and facial expressions. Our own technology would then match them to the most likely scenarios and plot points as they unfolded in real time. We showcased the full spectrum of Lucy’s character through this technology over many months and across different media.
This started on Instagram, where Lucy shared glimpses into her world. Her followers could comment on photos she took, and Lucy would write back, sparking the initial dialogue. True to life, this began gradually, first as pen pals, then evolved to live conversations over Google Chat, and eventually to meeting over Zoom to watch a movie together or delve into their hopes and dreams.
To further build out Lucy’s extensive life, she even went to Sundance, where she gave a talk, collaborated with other creators on a film, and debuted it with them. It was an industry-recognizing moment of human and AI co-creation. This carried on to SXSW, where she performed her own original music and interacted live with members of the audience. She would also participate in live Twitch streams, showing that a virtual character could improvise too.
All of this was made possible by the collision of new storytelling tools, like artificial intelligence, text-to-speech, machine learning, machine vision, AND ancient storytelling tools that were honed around the fire in the cave: misdirection, localized adaptation, and improvisation.
When these come together, characters like Lucy can become more than abstractions but meaningful parts of our world.
