Unleashing the Future’s Fire
In his electrifying new play Prometheus, Damien Ryan reimagines the pulse-pounding showdown between the ancient Greek Gods and the Titan, Prometheus, through the lens of our rapid development of Artificial Intelligence and the inherited duties of creation and consequence we face as we race inexorably toward machines that can think for themselves.
What are we thinking in doing so? Will we flourish? Or are we manifesting our own destruction?
Like the mythic Prometheus who stole fire from the gods, AI emerges here as humanity’s stolen spark — powerful, unpredictable, and teetering on the edge of salvation or catastrophe. A Sydney-based AI start up releases the world’s first sentient, generative intelligence program onto the internet, charged with enhancing human flourishing. From there, the world changes forever.
This play was commissioned by the NSW Department of Education in 2024 and was developed in collaboration with the department's Creative Arts Secondary Curriculum Team. Department teachers can access licensed copies of the original commissioned work and supporting drama resources on the department's Drama 7–10 (2023) (nsw.gov.au) webpage.
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