A Cure for Straightness

Inspiration

'A Cure for Straightness' confronts the chilling reality of conversion therapy, a dangerous practice that targets LGBTQ+ youth and seeks to change their sexual or gender identities.

It is still practiced in every U.S. state, and legal to perform on children in over half.

I wanted to create an experience that uses AI to reverse this narrative, to spark dialogue around the absurdity and harm of these practices.

What it does

In 'A Cure for Straightness', you're an active participant in the story. The experience forces you to have a conversation with an AI-powered ‘ex-straight’ therapist, highlighting the inherent absurdity of ‘correcting’ someone’s gender or sexual orientation.

Cutting-edge technology, such as AI characters, eye-tracking, and brain wave interfaces, simulate real techniques used in conversion therapy, allowing you to understand more deeply the harms of these practices.

DEMO: https://vimeo.com/883780419/5925750ca1?share=copy

How we built it

The experience was built in Unreal Engine 5, combining MetaHumans with Inworld intelligent characters, Elevan Labs voice cloning, and both image generated textures and 3D generated assets. Modular triggers to guide story flow were developed with Blueprints and YAML to allow for a flexible and naturally interactive world, while still provoking active user participation. Brain wave interface data streams realtime into the engine to detect when player's lose focus, provoking an AI response and simulating the subversive natures of real conversion therapy.

Challenges we ran into

Not enough time to do everything I wanted to! Anticipating user responses is very challenging and I could spend months programming and still not expect how people might respond. We anticipated people not being willing to respond and programmed successive escalations that trigger even in silence, thus providing a backbone to the story even without user participation.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

Accurate combination of brain wave interface with AI NPC characters allows for a brand new way of engaging with content, enhanced by the immersion of VR. I hope to continue building this prototype and make it an even more immersive experience.

What we learned

The future of storytelling is not in scripts, but in triggers.

What's next for A Cure for Straightness

I want to build this beyond a prototype into a full narrative VR experience.

Built With

• chatgpt
• elevenlabs
• inworld
• luma
• midjourney
• muse
• unreal-engine