K.I.M. – Lotte leidet
© SLT / Tobias Witzgall

K.I.M. – See Lotte Suffer

Flo Staffelmayr

Play for young audiences, ages 12 and up

Austrian Premiere: March 5, 2026 / Kammerspiele

Synopsis

Why not talk to a machine about your feelings? At least KIM listens to Lotte – and so she pours out her heart to the artificial intelligence. It feels good to unload all her problems – and she is even paid to do it. Even though this job seems a little weird, it helps Lotte make a new start. Wilhelm, the head of the institute, is pleased with the progress he is seeing. KIM is a fast learner and quickly adapts to Lotte’s personality. Instead of coming to terms with her old feelings, however, Lotte develops new feelings – for KIM. But KIM is only using Lotte. When Lotte realises that KIM is exploiting their conversations to produce fake emotional responses and interpersonal relationships in dealing with nursing home patients, she decides that she has had enough. It is time to end this experiment. Just before it is too late, she learns to differentiate between algorithms and true compassion.

Chatbots, smart homes, search engines, navigation systems, spam filters, smart watches, etc. – we are increasingly surrounded by various forms of AI. How does their assistance affect our human emotions?

In his text, Flo Staffelmayr shines a light on the merging of humans and machines that we are currently witnessing and points out that, while emotions can be copied, machines cannot experience real feelings – unlike Lotte.