Artificial Intelligence as a Partner in Shaw Studies

This chapter explores how AI can connect today’s audiences and readers to Shaw and his contemporaries. Shaw often wrote his plays and works with his own contemporaries in mind, both of which are increasingly drifting away from the here and now. Can artificial intelligences help bridge this ever-widening gap? This question will be tackled in three ways. First, are Shaw’s texts coded to deliver his Gospel of the Life Force and Creative Evolution? Second, how were productions of Shaw’s plays adapted to cultural contexts without making substantial changes to the play texts? Third, how will AI help today’s audiences and readers understand the contemporary references in Shaw’s works? The types of AI functionalities considered include SPSS text modeller, natural language understanding, visual colour recognition, virtual reality, virtual assistant and ChatGPT.