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Episode Description
What can a playwright teach us about designing generative AI? In this episode of The Dialogue Architects, host Lauren Goerz welcomes conversation designer and playwright Soo‑Jin Lee for an in‑depth look at the creative and technical practices that shape AI behavior.
Soo‑Jin traces her journey from public‑school teaching and playwriting to building conversational search experiences powered by language models. She explains how modern conversation design goes far beyond scripting dialogue—instead involving system‑prompt design, content guardrails, metadata strategy, and rigorous human evaluation to ensure responses are accurate, safe, and aligned with brand values.
Using “smart search” as a real product example, Soo‑Jin breaks down how metadata underpins natural‑language queries and how short generated confirmation blurbs help users validate intent. She also demystifies the world of human raters, sharing what it takes to calibrate feedback, avoid bias, and make ethical decisions around inappropriate or sensitive content.
The conversation highlights the importance of collaboration between designers and engineers, and why hybrid creative‑technical thinkers are becoming essential in the GenAI era. Soo‑Jin closes by exploring the challenge of teaching AI humor—and her interest in designing bots that bring wholesome joy to user interactions.
This episode offers actionable insights for designers, engineers, and product leaders building trustworthy, user‑aligned generative AI systems.
Episode Timestamps
(00:00) Welcome and guest introduction
(00:47) Origin story: playwriting to AI
(03:29) Teaching models like students
(05:18) GenAI workflows and guardrails
(09:07) Smart search interfaces explained
(12:38) Personalization and metadata
(15:47) Human raters and calibration
(18:24) Ethics and brand‑safety decisions
(20:01) Feedback loops and RAG workflow
(21:25) Designers and engineers working together
(23:27) What humans create that AI can’t
(24:42) Future directions: humor in bots
(26:54) Wrap‑up and thanks
- Soo‑Jin Lee – LinkedIn
- Lauren Goerz - LinkedIn
- Learn more about trustworthy conversational AI at rasa.com
Soo‑Jin Lee is a New York–based playwright and conversation designer whose work blends creative storytelling with practical AI design. Before entering the world of conversational AI, she spent years as a public‑school teacher and playwright—experiences that sharpened her understanding of dialogue, audience intention, and the nuances of human communication. Today, Soo‑Jin works across generative search and language‑model‑driven experiences, where she develops system prompts, designs content guardrails, and leads human‑evaluation workflows to ensure accuracy, safety, and clarity. Her multidisciplinary background allows her to approach AI design with both imagination and rigor, making her a distinctive voice in the evolution of generative AI and conversational UX.
About The Dialogue ArchitectsThe Dialogue Architects
is a podcast from Rasa, hosted by Lauren Goerz, exploring the craft and strategy behind designing conversational AI in the enterprise. Each episode brings together technologists, designers, and product leaders to unpack how dialogue is built, scaled, and governed in real‑world systems.
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