Towards an AI-Assisted Speculative Narrative Design Workflow

This paper proposes an AI-assisted speculative narrative design workflow as a critical tool to address and respond to ecological ethics and anthropocentrism in the Anthropocene. Speculating on a post-climate collapse, ocean-dominated future, Project Serum constructs a multi-species narrative through the lens of a deep-sea court trial, where humans, whales, and robots contest ecological justice and species dominance. Combining speculative design methodologies with multispecies worldbuilding, this work builds a narrative blueprint using a structured 5W1H framework and AI-enhanced story design. This blueprint is then remediated into multiple formats, including video, postcards, and comic posters, through the proposed AI-assisted workflows integrating AI image generation and human editorial control. By applying these narrative remediation strategies with AI, this study challenges anthropocentric narrative structures and offers a reusable workflow for multi-modal, multi-species storytelling. It demonstrates the speculative narrative’s potential as a reflective intervention, capable of destabilising normative narrative hierarchies and foregrounding ecological justice with AI-mediated production.