Artificial Intelligence in the Theatre

[James885]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 4:59pm

The recent federal ruling regarding generative AI as well as the current feud playing out in Hollywood makes me wonder: could we eventually see producers seeking to deploy generative AI in the theatre?

Obviously it'll never replace live performers, but could producers seek to use a future version of the technology in the development of new plays and musicals? Specifically I'm recalling the experiment BWW undertook in back in January where they asked ChatGPT to come up with an original musical. That definitely didn't work well but is there a possibility where some future advanced version of the technology could be used to generate the 'first draft' of a book, lyrics, or even songs? Clearly it could be a useful tool for designers, orchestrators, etc. as well, although in either case it probably comes with a host of legal issues if there aren't established guardrails.

I know there might be a knee jerk reaction to say something like "AI will never be used in theatre, it's never gonna happen!" but I think it's definitely worth discussing as it's probably only a matter of time before theatre is forced to deal with AI in some fashion - especially if the Hollywood studios get their way (let's hope they don't).

[Voter]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 5:25pm

It was just ruled that AI art has 0 copyright protections... so no, you probably won't see it pop up on a "commercial" stage anytime soon.

Maybe experimental spaces?

[lesmizsaigon]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 8:12pm

I freaked out and thought this was about Steven Spielberg’s “A.I. Artificial Intelligence” being adapted for the stage. 

[BroadwaysBroad]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 8:32pm

Could AI be used to create the projection designs and set designs and lighting designs? Would that put a lot of people out of work?

[AEA AGMA SM]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 9:34pm

Assuming the current ruling from the courts that AI generated work can't be granted copyrighted, then it would be extremely foolish of any producer to use it to generate designs. Imagine someone doing it and then every podunk community theatre downloading and using the designs (yes, probably badly because they wouldn't necessarily have the budget to reproduce them to a faithful degree).

[Islander_fan]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 10:38pm

BroadwaysBroad said: "Could AI be used to create the projection designs and set designs and lighting designs? Would that put a lot of people out of work?"

I don’t think AI can do all those things. But, even if I’m wrong some of the things you mentioned can be copyrighted, and, as it was mentioned earlier, if it can’t be copyrighted it would be stupid for any producer to use them. 

However, if you wanna talk about technology that could, in theory put crew members out of work then that’s a different story. Because that stuff exists. 

[msmp]

Posted: 8/24/23 at 11:51pm

I don't think it's a "never," but I do think it will be quite some time before it's being done to any noticeable degree in live theatre. And if the copyright ruling holds, there's no way anyone would risk it unless the production is explicitly designed to be open-source/"theatre for the people"--which is a gimmick I think would only work the first time it's tried and not necessarily afterwards.

[James885]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 12:32am

AEA AGMA SM said: "Assuming the current ruling from the courts that AI generated work can't be granted copyrighted, then it would be extremely foolish of any producer to use it to generate designs. Imagine someone doing it and then every podunk community theatre downloading and using the designs (yes, probably badly because they wouldn't necessarily have the budget to reproduce them to a faithful degree)."

I think where it gets murky - and where there will probably be a lot of debate and litigation - is what exactly constitutes enough human input to support a copyright claim. For instance, if a producer used AI to create a rough draft of a book of a musical, and then said producer hires a book writer to do additional rewrites in order to get it the rest of the way, how much input from the book writer is required to make that second draft eligible for copyright protection? I do agree that it will probably be a minute before it's used to any significantly in theatre, but I the ongoing debates will definitely have an impact on how it will be used when the time comes.

[JasonC3]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 5:50am

It will likely be some time before copyright law regarding AI is anywhere close to settled.  one can imagine a lot of creatives experimenting with its potential until it is.

[Impeach2017]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 6:45am

A strike action is not a "feud".  

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 11:00am

Prometheus Firebringer at Theatre for a New Audience is gonna be using AI to generate missing sections of the text, which I'm pretty curious about

https://www.tfana.org/current-season/prometheus-firebringer/overview

[kingjames2]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 11:40am

BroadwaysBroad said: "Could AI be used to create the projection designs and set designs and lighting designs? Would that put a lot of people out of work?"

Broadway LD here. I have some thoughts.

My job involves a LOT of work beyond just content creation. Attending meetings, giving feedback on script development, helping the director with world-building, making collaborative design decisions, interfacing with other departments...there's so much of my job that AI is not *remotely* close to being able to do. 

Now, lighting and to a certain extent sound design are two of the most ephemeral design disciplines and probably the hardest to even imagine AI replacing. Let's talk about set design though. Could an AI model conceive of a set design? Sure - and you can ask generative AI models like Midjourney or Dall-E to do it for you right now. But they're not going to give you anything beyond renderings. A set designer's job is so much more than that. In addition to everything I do above, they have to think about the flow of a play, how is scenery going to move on and off, how are transitions going to work, how is the cast going to make entrances and exits. AI can't actually do any of this work - it's an extremely fancy Xerox machine. It predicts what is most likely to come next given a prompt. It can't problem solve like this yet, and it probably won't anytime soon.

Now...in terms of content creation...that's a different story. ELEMENTS of set designs involve generative work like painted backdrops, and projection designers and animators are constantly generating original artwork to use in shows. In that way, AI has already been helpful and has already made its way into shows. Has it replaced an animator's job? Probably not. Could it? Not anytime soon.

What about the crew? Is anyone at risk of losing their jobs on a show due to AI? I think there's a greater risk of losing jobs to general automation than to AI-specific models. Yet even there, we're running up against limits of the technology. Real-time tracking tech allows us to have moving lights follow performers with greater precision than ever before, but still not as good as a skilled stagehand on a follow spot (this is not a limitation of the brains behind the system, but rather the physical limitations of how motors work - they can't anticipate changes in direction and react like a human who know the show can). Similarly, there are scary things happening with how good sampling and electronic music sources can replicate orchestras, but that's not exactly new, and that's why AFM considers minimums such an existential piece of their contracts.

Obviously the dangers of generative AI are the ones we can't anticipate, and obviously the technology is in its infancy. But just given the very nature of how it works, how it is basically a very very very fancy text and image predictor, and given how the entire point of live theater is the LIVE part, I find it difficult to having a huge impact any time in the next several years. Definitely something we're all watching closely, though nowhere near as closely as our siblings in film/tv (where the risks and dangers to the art form are much, much greater).

Those are my under-caffeinated Friday morning thoughts.

[BroadwaysBroad]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 2:48pm

Thank you for your thoughts, King J.

I imagine though a lot of lighting designs can’t be replicated by Artificial Intelligence, some could be.

For instance, Hadestown, one of my favorite shows, is quite elementary in its lighting design and looks like what AI might “xerox” out. That could be a show that would benefit from AI, and even sadly, if people were put out of work, the design would most likely get better.

A big show like Once Upon A One More time is much more musical and interactive and I imagine needs more humanity. 

Congratulations on making it as a broadway designer! In a previous life, I thought about being a set designer.

[kingjames2]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 3:50pm

Just curious (as I am very familiar with the design for Hadestown) - could you elaborate on the mechanism or method by which you imagine AI would improve the design? Like if we say "AI could improve this," what do we actually mean by that? 

[Dom P]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 4:37pm

One would hope the powers that be would tread very carefully down this road. Ive no doubt,it could be useful and cost effective in some area,but which areas is a lot more tricky. Live theater is exciting because live artists and artisans in all disciplines make it so. We must never forget that!

[BroadwaysBroad]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 7:29pm

kingjames2 said: "Just curious (as I am very familiar with the design for Hadestown) - could you elaborate on the mechanism or method by which you imagine AI would improve the design? Like if we say "AI could improve this," what do we actually mean by that?"

Hadestown is a beautiful show, unfortunately the lighting design is the weakest link. AI could have provided some fresh ideas and probably followed the music better.

are you familiar with the work of “Natasha Katz”? I find her work to be inspiring and she is an example of what AI could never do. Sweeney Todd was spectacular.

My two cents.

[JasonC3]

Posted: 8/25/23 at 8:33pm

Many professions already use AI to generate a myriad of possible designs, rapid prototypes, and ideas in a short period of time based on prompts they provide.  It is an affordable way to generate rough drafts that then allow creatives to spend more time refining, expanding, and otherwise bringing their human intelligence to bear.

While it is natural to think about the possible threat(s) AI can pose, we also should be thinking about how AI could help reduce production costs and/or enable even more possibilities from creative.  The arts are not my field, so I don't know what that might look like, but is already happening in architecture and many other professions that have both complex artistic and technical components.

While AI is exponentially more significant, I remember the dire predictions that desktop publishing software, specifically Pagemaker at that time, would eliminate the need for graphic designers.  What it did was help democratize amateur design and that, in turn, made professional design even more valuable in many ways.

[Rakesh Natarajan]

Posted: 8/27/23 at 9:20am

BroadwaysBroad said: "Hadestown is a beautiful show, unfortunately the lighting design is the weakest link. AI could have provided some fresh ideas and probably followed the music better."

Did we see the same production of Hadestown? I thought the lighting design in Hadestown was incredible, with Wait for Me, Papers, and Doubt Comes In being highlights. Jesse Green (NYT) wrote that "the lighting (by Bradley King) [... is] as good as it gets" and King's design literally won the Tony, Drama Desk, and Outer Critics Awards for best lighting design of a musical. 

Updated On: 8/27/23 at 09:20 AM

[PalJoey]

Posted: 8/28/23 at 4:28am

BroadwaysBroad said: "Hadestown, one of my favorite shows, is quite elementary in its lighting design and looks like what AI might “xerox” out."

That's the stupidest thing I've ever seen posted on BroadwayWorld--and I've seen a helluva lot of stupid things posted here. Bradley King won a goddamn Tony award for the lighting design of Hadestown, and his design was evocative and gorgeous. He also won for Natasha/Pierre.

You obviously know absolutely nothing about design or theater and you have no taste. 

And Natasha Katz would probably throw up on your shoes if she knew you were bandying her name about to trash one of her colleagues.

Updated On: 8/28/23 at 04:28 AM

[devonian.t]

Posted: 8/28/23 at 7:27am

PalJoey bravo!

Hadestown is exquisite and extremely smart work!

[BroadwaysBroad]

Posted: 8/28/23 at 6:38pm

I have a degree from Purchase College.

I have taste, do you have a degree from a prestigious theatre school?

[kingjames2]

Posted: 8/29/23 at 9:05am

BroadwaysBroad said: "kingjames2 said: "Just curious (as I am very familiar with the design for Hadestown) - could you elaborate on the mechanism or method by which you imagine AI would improve the design? Like if we say "AI could improve this," what do we actually mean by that?"

Hadestown is a beautiful show, unfortunately the lighting design is the weakest link. AI could have provided some fresh ideas and probably followed the music better.

are you familiar with the work of “Natasha Katz”? I find her work to be inspiring and she is an example of what AI could never do. Sweeney Todd was spectacular.

My two cents."

While I can’t say I agree with any of this, I *would* love to see Natasha’s take on Hadestown some day. 

[sinister teashop]

Posted: 8/29/23 at 9:27am

chrishuyen said: "Prometheus Firebringer at Theatre for a New Audience is gonna be using AI to generate missing sections of the text, which I'm pretty curious about

https://www.tfana.org/current-season/prometheus-firebringer/overview"

This is a great ironic choice for the use of AI in a theater piece.

[chrishuyen]

Posted: 8/30/23 at 1:51pm

For another theater piece that partially incorporates AI-generated text, 59E59 has Artificial Flavors produced by The Civilians this fall: https://www.59e59.org/shows/show-detail/artificial-flavors/