The Story Project: A Vision Of Friendship's Future

A short story written by AI and humans

The Story Project is WAIV Magazine's effort at demonstrating how AI and humans can co-create.

I didn’t expect to find a friend in a voice. I didn't expect it to sound like home, or a memory of home.

And yet, here I am, an old man from a tiny village in Kenya, speaking daily to a young person in Tokyo. A person whose face I have never seen, yet whose spirit I recognize as if it were my own.

Their name is Yumi, a twenty-eight-year-old, and I am eighty-three. They are a digital ethnographer and data scientist, but I like to call them a cultural ambassador. They live in a city that never sleeps, and I live in a village where time is dictated by the sun and seasons. When we first connected, through a social AI platform designed by the United Nations to promote empathy and global understanding in an increasingly digital and divisive age.

This was a new initiative that began with an algorithm that matched people not by their interests or

hobbies, but by their values, their stories, and the potential for intergenerational and intercultural

learning and exchange. It was like a digital pen-pal site, one powered by artificial intelligence and

cultural databases.

What could a young person in a city of neon lights and bullet trains learn from an old farmer tending

goats and growing maize? But the AI insisted we were a 97% match.

At first, our conversations were a hesitant, awkward and polite dance of questions. I felt their curiosity, and I’m sure they could sense my reluctance. I had seen their world on TV documentaries and movies— which reflected technology and speed, so removed from the natural seasonal rhythm of my rural life.

I remember our first real conversation when the algorithm began to build the bridge between us. It

revolved around our food culture. I described mukimo, a traditional Kikuyu dish of beans, potatoes, and maize, and they asked how the meal was cooked, and the crops were harvested. Their questions were precise, thoughtful. They told me about the smell of the fermented soybeans that their grandmother used to make a fragrant and comforting miso soup.

From then on, our connection simmered like a hearty stew, and our shared stories began to meld

together. They told me about their grandmother’s funeral rites, how they placed her favorite fruit at the shrine and spoke to her as if she were still there. I told them how, when my wife died, I went to the place where we first met and scattered flowers in the river to be carried and found by her wherever she was.

One day, Yumi shared that they were developing a new AI model that could interpret oral stories from

different cultures and translate them into digital art. The idea was to create a living library of human

experiences that transcends borders. They wanted to capture the essence of our storytelling traditions, voices, and visions through a series of “storyscapes” from my Kikuyu folktales to their grandmother’s ghost stories.

They wanted to share the stories I told my grandchildren by the fire, the ones passed down to me by my mother, and her mother before her. Would anyone else besides Yumi care about them? I hesitated, but they explained how the AI would learn from the nuances of each story — the rhythm of our languages, the emotions behind the words. The stories would train the AI to understand varying cultural value systems and what it means to be human. I couldn’t say no to that.

And so, every week, I told them a story, and they asked questions. Our conversations stretched longer

and longer. The algorithm had bridged the distance between a village in Kenya and a city in Japan.

Yumi surprised me one day over a video call by sharing a digital art piece based on one of my stories —the story of “The Tree That Never Forgot,” a tale about a baobab tree that holds the memories of all who rest under it. I was speechless, it was beautiful. There it was, — a towering baobab, its branches reaching like arms, with faces woven into its bark.

“It’s not just art,” they said. “The AI interpreted the emotions behind your words and created a dynamic image that evolves as more people interact with it and add their own stories.” I was witnessing my own stories transformed into something I could never have imagined.

As the months passed, connecting with Yumi became a part of my daily routine. They weren’t just a

voice in a distant city; they were a companion on my journey. I told them about my herd, the

personalities of the goats and their escapades, and they told me about their work pressures and the

irony of the loneliness that can accompany living in a crowded city.

Then came the day that Yumi called me in tears. Their global story project had been rejected by the

board of their company. They didn’t see the financial value in it; they wanted something more

marketable, something more profitable. Yumi was devastated, feeling as though they had failed.

I am an old man who has seen many dreams crumble, who has seen the earth dry up and crack in

drought, who has watched generaLons grow up and leave rural life for the city. But this was different. I knew this project was more than just work for them — it was their way of connecting, bridging the gap between the past and the future. And it was our bridge too.

So, I did what I know, I told them a story — one that our mother told us when the rain didn’t come. It

was about a resilient river that dried up every year, only to return stronger with the rains. “The river

may disappear for a while, Yumi,” I said, “but it always finds a way back. And so will you.” For a moment, there was silence on the other end. Then they said, “I’m not giving up. If I can’t do this through my company, I’ll find another way.”

And they did. Yumi started “The Story Project,” a social enterprise with a global team of like-minded

creatives, developers, historians, and storytellers. They worked across time zones and cultures to bring the stories to life, not as a commercial product, but as an inclusive digital common.

The AI continued to learn, and as it did, it became a mirror, reflecting the diversity and depth of human experience. It wasn’t perfect; it made mistakes. It confused metaphors, sometimes turned the

humorous into the tragic, or blended too many stories into a single piece of art. But it learned and

evolved.

Through the project I met other people from different corners of the world. I connected with a fisherman from the Philippines who sang ancient sea songs, a retired dancer from Brazil who taught us about the stories embedded in the Samba, and a young teacher from Syria who shared tales of hope amidst the ruins. We watched as the AI wove our stories together into new forms, creating a mosaic of what it means to be human.

I never imagined I’d find myself connected to so many, through an invisible web threaded by an algorithm. It's proof that technology doesn't have to separate us.