Not the Only One

Not The Only One is the multigenerational memoir of one black American family told from the “mind” of an artificial intelligence with evolving intellect. It is a voice-interactive AI designed, trained, and aligned with the needs and ideals of black and brown people who are drastically underrepresented in the tech sector. An interactive voice-driven platform, deep learning algorithm trained on data collected from living subjects, and augmented reality will be used to create its narrative. The AI storyteller will be trained on data supplied by three generations of women from one family. The story is told from the first person perspective. Three separate people will provide data to form the AI character, but the AI will present itself as a single, unified personality. Multiple data sources are being used as input to provide a broad narrative scope for the AI and tell the story of a family as opposed to the stories of individuals. The project will be repeatable and present perpetually dynamic conversation, scenarios, and stories that change according to the user's questions or the AI’s mood. Over time, user input (discussion) will influence the NTOO’s storytelling abilities because the AI's database of available vocabulary and topics will grow with each user interaction.
Not the Only One’s narrative comes from the experiences and demographic information culled from three generations of a close-knit family. The principal character narrates in the form of voice-driven AI that uses machine learning to expand and extend its story. The eldest contributor to the foundation of the storyline was born in the American south in 1932. As a teenager, she moved north with her family for better education and opportunity. She worked forty years in the same factory, breaking ground and advancing from line worker to respected supervisor in the company. The middle contributor to the project was born in 1964. She went to the same suburban high school as her mother. Part of one of few black families in a small suburban town, she had racial challenges, but she also had opportunities her mother could never have dreamt of. Contributor three was born in 1997. She is the biracial daughter of the family who grew up with the privileges of whiteness, yet identifies as black and is currently trying to understand what it means to be black and white in ‘Black Lives Matter’ America. The stories of all three will be gathered from extensive interviews. The data will be used to seed a deep-learning, emotionally intelligent AI.

Not The Only One Mood Board