Ayad Akhtar Needs No Help
Words by Amitava Kumar
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Ayad Akhtar Needs No Help
In Pulitzer-winning playwright Ayad Akhtar’s new play “McNeal,” a famous novelist grapples with AI and life’s problems.
“McNeal,” Ayad Akhtar’s play that just opened at Lincoln Center, stars Robert Downey Jr. in the role of a novelist named Jacob McNeal.
The set is bathed in the soft blue glow of an iPhone screen. In fact, when the play starts in the dark, the backdrop is a phone screen on which with the tapping sounds of an iPhone keyboard we see the moving cursor form the following question: “Who will win the Nobel Prize in Literature this year?”
The GPT responds: “The selection process for the Nobel is highly secretive…. As an AI language model, I cannot accurately predict the recipient of the Nobel Prize or any other future event. I’m sorry.”
The person typing these words is, of course, the play’s protagonist himself. A prominent novelist in his sixties, Jacob McNeal. He is about to arrive at his doctor’s where he is being treated for Stage 3 liver disease. He has gone back to drinking because the month of October, when the Nobel is announced, is a tough month for him. He’s in serious trouble, the doctor says; the AI model called Suarez that tracks liver function has McNeal ending with liver failure within three months.