Off Center

Off Center, a Podcast from the Center For Digital Narrative
  • 4.8 (5)
  • TECHNOLOGY
  • UPDATED BIWEEKLY

Off Center is a podcast series from the Center for Digital Narrative, a Norwegian Center of Research Excellence at the University of Bergen, Norway. In each episode, host Scott Rettberg and a guest delve into a topic revolving around digital storytelling and its effect on contemporary culture. The series covers academic research on digital narratives in electronic literature, computer games, social media, computational narrative systems, AI, XR and more in an enjoyable and understandable way.

  1. ALGOpod #7: Bokar N'Diaye

    4D AGO

    ALGOpod #7: Bokar N'Diaye

    In episode seven of ALGOpod, Gabriele de Seta catches up with Bokar N'Diaye, doctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Logic, Language and Computation, regarding the past and future of creativity and generative models.

    1h 5m
  2. The AI Update XX - AI Consciousness

    MAR 31

    The AI Update XX - AI Consciousness

    On this episode Scott and Jhave talk about AI Consciousness, debating whether recent research into mechanistic interpretability suggests that frontier models are developing introspection, nascent sentience, and/or a "society of thought." References  Aranyosi, M. (2026), Mechanistic Indicators of Understanding in Large Language Models https://arxiv.org/abs/2507.08017  Butlin, P. et al. (2023), Identifying Indicators of Consciousness in AI Systems, https://arxiv.org/abs/2308.08708 Berg, C et al. (2025), LLMs Report Subjective Experience under Self-Referential Processing https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.24797 DeepMind (2026), Reasoning Models Generate Societies of Thought, https://arxiv.org/abs/2601.10825 Descartes, R. (1637), Discourse on the Method Johnston, D (2006) Consciousness, Understanding & Mechanistic Interpretability https://glia.ca/2026/hbf/  Johnston, D (2006) Is AI Conscious according to current criteria? https://glia.ca/2026/hbf/iac/ Nanda, N. (2025), Emergent Introspective Awareness in Large Language Models, https://www.anthropic.com/research Schneiderman, D. (2026), The HUMAN Project

    33 min
  3. Episode 45 - Don’t Let AI Neutralize Your Voice with Kishonna Gray

    MAR 24

    Episode 45 - Don’t Let AI Neutralize Your Voice with Kishonna Gray

    When Professor Kishonna Gray visited the Center for Digital Narrative in February 2026, she showed us “synthetic Kishonna”, an AI-generated version of Kishonna somebody made to share on social media with a generic AI-generated quote about diversity. In this podcast, Kishonna talks with Jill Walker Rettberg about what was so disturbing about this image, which took Kishonna’s huge grin and very embodied self and turned it in to what Kishonna calls a “disillation of blackness”, a homogenized and politely smiling normalized fake that erases what makes Kishonna Kishonna. If you follow this link, you’ll see the real photo of Kishonna on the right and the AI version on the left: https://www.kishonnagray.com/synthetic-kishonna    Kishonna Gray argues that AI produces representation without embodiment, and it neutralises our individual voices. That can be very disempowering. But as June Jordan wrote in 1978, “we are the ones we have been waiting for”: we don’t have to let AI neutralise us.    Kishonna Gray is famous for her work in Black games studies, and Professor of Racial Justice and Technology in the School of Information at the University of Michigan, and is on the CDN’s advisory board. Read more at https://www.kishonnagray.com/   References: Kishonna mentioned Safiya Noble’s book Algorithms of Oppression: How Search Engines Reinforce Racism (NYU Press, 2018) and the documentary Coded Bias, which is about MIT researcher Joy Buolamwini’s research on gender bias in AI. You can read more about Buolamwini’s work at http://gendershades.com   The “Harpo, who dis woman” meme is an animated gif from Spielberg’s 1985 movie The Color Purple, and can be seen at https://tenor.com/view/who-this-woman-harpo-who-is-this-whoisthat-colorpurple-gif-13132285   Kishonna mentions citational practices;back in 2015 she started the #citeherwork hashtag on Twitter, and Wendy Belcher later came up with the Gray Test, named for Kishonna – to pass the Gray Test «a journal article must not only cite the scholarship of at least two women and two non-white people, but must discuss it in the body of the text»(https://web.archive.org/web/20250318093245/https://www.wihe.com/article-details/194/researching-gaming-and-showing-why-citations-matter)   You can read more about what Jill meant about bra straps, personal criticism and finding your voice in her blog post from back in 2002: https://jilltxt.net/arkiv/2001_07_01_arkiv.html#4701526   The Nature paper showing that switching to X’s algorithmic (“For you”) feed shifted peoples’ political opinions to the right is “The Political Effects of X’s Feed Algorithm” by Germain Gauthier, Roland Hodler, Philine Widmer, and Ekaterina Zhuravskaya. It was published in February 2026: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-026-10098-2   June Jordan’s poem that ends with the words “we are the ones we have been waiting for” is called “Poem for South African Woman” and she read it at the United Nations in 1978. It is available at https://poets.org/poem/poem-south-african-women

    33 min
  4. Episode 44: AI Characters with Lukas Wilde

    MAR 16

    Episode 44: AI Characters with Lukas Wilde

    What happens when we treat AI not just as a tool, but as a character? In this episode of Off Center, guest host Jill Walker Rettberg sits down with Lukas Wilde to explore the evolution of AI personas. Drawing on transmedia theory and the "Eliza effect," Wilde breaks down three ways we encounter AI: as fictional robots (like Star Trek’s Data), as co-authors in creative media, and as interactive agents in our daily lives. From theme park mascots to "multiverses" of chatbot inconsistency, they discuss how our deep-seated habits of fictional role-play shape how we perceive machine intelligence. References Amodei, D. (2024) Machines of Loving Grace https://darioamodei.com/machines-of-loving-grace  Crawford, K. (2021) The Atlas of AI: Power, Politics, and the Planetary Costs of Artificial Intelligence  Gray, K. (2020) Intersectional Tech: Black Users in Digital Worlds  Greimas, A. J. (1966) Sémantique structurale: recherche de méthode  Latour, B. (2005) Reassembling the Social: An Introduction to Actor-Network Theory  Merlan, A. (2023) The ChatGPT Lawyer Explains It All https://www.vice.com/en/article/v7bdba/the-chatgpt-lawyer-explains-it-all  Pereira, G. (2023) Towards a Critical Folklore of Artificial Intelligence https://www.gabrielpereira.net/  Weizenbaum, J. (1966) ELIZA—A Computer Program For the Study of Natural Language Communication Between Man and Machine https://web.stanford.edu/class/linguist238/p36-weizenbaum.pdf  Wilde, L. (2023) The Character Effect and the Eliza Effect: AI Characters as Digital Actants https://www.researchgate.net/publication/375762828_The_Character_Effect_and_the_Eliza_Effect_AI_Characters_as_Digital_Actants  Wilde, L. and Kunze, T. (2024) A Key Figure: AI Characters Wilde, L. and Thon, J.-N. (2022) Characters in Game Studies and Media Research https://www.researchgate.net/publication/361836017_Characters_in_Game_Studies_and_Media_Research_A_Review_and_Introduction

    40 min
  5. ALGOpod #6: Santtu Raisanen

    MAR 9

    ALGOpod #6: Santtu Raisanen

    In episode six of ALGOpod, Gabriele de Seta and Hanna Lauvli geek out with Santtu Raisanen, doctoral researcher at the Center for Consumer Society at The University of Helsinki, about the pervasive concept of convenience in contemporary algorithmic culture.

    44 min
  6. Episode 43 - AI and the Humanities with Davis Schneiderman

    MAR 2

    Episode 43 - AI and the Humanities with Davis Schneiderman

    What happens when you drop generative AI into the middle of a liberal arts curriculum? This week on Off Center, Scott sits down with Davis Schneiderman at Lake Forest College to find out. We dive into the HUMAN project, a campus-wide experiment putting AI tools directly into the hands of humanities students and professors. Instead of panicking or running from the tech, Davis argues that writers, artists, and historians need to get their hands dirty with AI to actually understand and critique it. From historical Chicago chatbots to the future of experimental fiction, this conversation explores why the creative critical thinking skills taught in the humanities are our best defense in an AI-driven world. References  Burroughs, W. S., & Gysin, B. (1978). The Third Mind. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Third_Mind Chamberlain, W., & Thomas Ettrick [Racter]. (1984). The Policeman's Beard Is Half Constructed. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Policeman%27s_Beard_Is_Half_Constructed Grossman, J. R., Keating, A. D., & Reiff, J. L. (Eds.). (2004). The Encyclopedia of Chicago. http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/ Gysin, B. (1960). I AM THAT I AM [Audio / Permutation poem]. https://www.ubu.com/sound/gysin.html Lake Forest College. (n.d.). Humanity’s Understanding of the Machine-Assisted Nexus (HUMAN) https://www.lakeforest.edu/academics/krebs-center-for-the-humanities Sanchez Burr, D. (2025). Redshift https://morethanmeetsai.uib.no/ Schneiderman, D., & [Kelly]. (2025). You Can Call Me AI  Taylor, T. (2025). Serious Game

    56 min
  7. ALGOpod #5: Anya Shchetvina

    FEB 23

    ALGOpod #5: Anya Shchetvina

    In episode five of ALGOpod, Gabriele de Seta is joined by Anya Shchetvina, PhD fellow with the Literary and Epistemic History of Small Forms research group at the Humboldt University in Berlin, to hear about her current work on internet manifestos. References Barlow, John Perry (1996) A Declaration of the Independence of Cyberspace. https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence Blankenship, Loyd (1986) The Conscience of a Hacker. http://phrack.org/issues/7/3.html Cheng, Jack (2012) The Slow Web. http://jackcheng.com/the-slow-web Feminist Server Project. (2014) Feminist Server Manifesto 0.01 / Transfeminist Server Wishlist.https://bakonline.org/en/research+publications/prospections/a+wishlist+for+trans+feminist+servers/ Haraway, Donna (1985) A Cyborg Manifesto. https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/donna-haraway-a-cyborg-manifesto Le Guin, Ursula K. (2024) The Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction. https://www.ursulakleguin.com/the-carrier-bag-theory-of-fiction Lialina, Olia. (2005) A Vernacular Web. http://art.teleportacia.org/observation/vernacular/ Old Boys Network. 1997. 100 Anti-Theses of Cyberfeminism (Referenced as "one hundred and ninety theses on Cyberfeminism"). https://obn.org/cfundef/100antitheses.html Reynolds, Simon (2011) Retromania: Pop Culture's Addiction to Its Own Past. https://us.macmillan.com/books/9780865479944 Sadgrl.online (2021) Sad Girl Online Webmaster Manifesto. https://sadgrl.online/ Turner, Fred. (2006) From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism. https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3773602.html VNS Matrix. 1991. A Cyberfeminist Manifesto for the 21st Century. https://vnsmatrix.net/projects/the-cyberfeminist-manifesto-for-the-21st-century

    40 min
  8. The AI Update XIX - World Models

    FEB 16

    The AI Update XIX - World Models

    What are “World Models,” and why should we care? Could AI really understand reality? Scott and Jhave sit down to explore the rise of World Models - the "engines" of machine intuition -to discuss how quickly they are evolving and what their existence means for the future of humanity (and the robots living alongside us) References Agarwal, N. et al. (2025) Cosmos World Foundation Model Platform for Physical AI. https://arxiv.org/abs/2501.03575 ByteDance. (2025) Lumine: An Open Recipe for Building Generalist Agents in 3D Open Worlds. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.08892 DeepMind SIMA Team. (2025) SIMA 2: A Generalist Embodied Agent for Virtual Worlds. https://arxiv.org/abs/2512.04797 Deng, J. et al. (2009) ImageNet: A Large-Scale Hierarchical Image Database. https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/5206848 Fisher, C., Coover, R., & Julian. (2026) [Untitled AR Skiing Project]. [No public URL available for this in-development project] Li, F.-F. (2025) From Words to Worlds: Spatial Intelligence is AI's Next Frontier. https://drfeifei.substack.com/p/from-words-to-worlds-spatial-intelligence Mao, J. et al. (2025) Robot Learning from a Physical World Model https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.07416 PAN Team, MBZUAI. (2025) PAN: A World Model for General, Interactable, and Long-Horizon World Simulation. https://arxiv.org/abs/2511.09057 Powers, R. (2000) Plowing the Dark. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plowing_the_Dark

    18 min
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Ratings & Reviews

4.8
out of 5
5 Ratings

About

Off Center is a podcast series from the Center for Digital Narrative, a Norwegian Center of Research Excellence at the University of Bergen, Norway. In each episode, host Scott Rettberg and a guest delve into a topic revolving around digital storytelling and its effect on contemporary culture. The series covers academic research on digital narratives in electronic literature, computer games, social media, computational narrative systems, AI, XR and more in an enjoyable and understandable way.

Information

  • Creator
    Off Center, a Podcast from the Center For Digital Narrative
  • Years Active
    2023 - 2026
  • Episodes
    74
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Off Center, a Podcast from the Center For Digital Narrative
  • Show Website
    Off Center

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