Off Center

Off Center, a Podcast from the Center For Digital Narrative

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. Episode 44: AI Characters with Lukas Wilde

    2D AGO

    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
  2. 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
  3. 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
  4. 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
  5. 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
  6. Episode 42 - 18th Century AI Slop with Hazel Wilkinson

    FEB 9

    Episode 42 - 18th Century AI Slop with Hazel Wilkinson

    Did you know slop was a problem long before AI? This episode of Off Center takes us all the way back to the 18th century as today’s host, Jill Walker Rettberg, discuss the precursors to AI slop with Hazel Wilkinson, Associate Professor of English at the University of Birmingham. Hazel’s specialty is 18th century literature, a time when paper and printing became much cheaper and it became possible to make a living by selling your writing. That also led to a lot of “bad literature”, to the development of copyright laws and to many discussions about the differences between originality and even “genius” and imitative “bad” writing that are surprisingly similar to today’s debates about AI slop and the threat LLMs pose to “good” literature.   Hazel’s previous research has been on book history and printer’s ornaments, and we begin the discussion by looking at an ornament often used in books that weren’t highly appreciated for their literary quality, showing an ape copying out a text by candlelight. Our discussion ranges from Pope’s The Dunciad, which parodies hack writers, to automatons that wrote out poems in carefully automated handwriting, to “it-narratives” told from the perspective of writing instruments like quills and paper that are outraged at the banal writing the humans use them for.   Hazel Wilkinson’s university profile page: https://www.birmingham.ac.uk/staff/profiles/english/wilkinson-hazel  Compositor is a database of eighteenth century printers’ ornaments. https://compositor.bham.ac.uk/

    34 min
  7. The AI Update XVIII - Musical Futures

    FEB 2

    The AI Update XVIII - Musical Futures

    Following Universal Music Groups' settlement and partnership of Udio, Scott and Jhave sit down to discuss the potential future of music in a world with AI.

    32 min
  8. Christmas Special Holiday Extravaganza Show

    12/17/2025 · BONUS

    Christmas Special Holiday Extravaganza Show

    Look what just dropped down the chimney: Why, it's the first Off Center Christmas Special Holiday Extravaganza Show! Featuring music, human and otherwise, lessons in Norwegian folklore, Christmas beers reviewed, holiday traditions from various cultures, and merriment of all sorts. Featuring Jill Walker Rettberg, Anne Sigrid Refsum, Nick Montfort, Gabriele de Seta, Drew Keller, Hanne-Rikka Roine, Yagmur Vik, Tegan Pyke, Nadja Heiber, Rafael Pérez y Pérez, Søren Pold and the New Originals, Andreas Opsvik, and Ola Roth Johnsen.

    1h 10m
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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
    71
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Off Center, a Podcast from the Center For Digital Narrative
  • Show Website
    Off Center

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