Brave New Space

Brave New Space: AI and the Performing Arts

By Anastasia Lainas-Hayward

Photo Credit: Bing Image Creator

Much has changed in education since the pandemic, most notably the wave of internet based teaching and learning. In the Toronto District School Board (TDSB) every student has been issued a Chromebook, a tool that is used in all classes. Gone are the computer labs of old and the mundane “handout”. Most assessments are now computer-based so technology-enhanced tools have become a basic requirement for every class. Generative text applications like ChatGPT have changed much about how students write. But will it change the way that drama is taught? Perhaps. Is it a threat to human-centric drama teaching as such? I argue not.

Generative AI is expensive to create – there are very few organizations worldwide with the money, armies of people and server farms to produce and continuously train the large language models (LLMs) that enable tools such as ChatGPT. This is not something a high school STEM department can knock up in a school lab. So when we use tools like ChatGPT we consume ready-made tools from giant corporations such as Google, Microsoft and Amazon and we have to take what we are given. Human-centric drama teaching is inherently democratic – what is created in the drama workshop is created by the teacher and the students themselves, drawing from their own experiences, hopes and imaginations. Consuming ready-made tools from giant corporations has an inherently undemocratic side. If we let the tools tell us what to do, if we let them define the possible, if we let them persuade us that we need AI to express creative thoughts, these organizations with their superficially creative tools will actually limit our imaginations, and restrict our creativity. We should not let multi-billion dollar organizations like Google and Microsoft shape and limit our experiences and our emotions. I am reminded of Huxley’s novel, Brave New World, in which the world’s population is created in a test tube production line with predetermined parameters of intelligence and agency, creativity and critical thought.

So, is there a place for AI in drama?

In the University of Toronto Magazine article “The Theatre of Tomorrow”, author Glenn Sumi (2023) explores the dramatic possibilities of AI and drama at the BMO Lab for Creative Research in the Arts, Performance, Emerging Technologies & AI. Sumi explains that David Rokeby, BMO Lab Director ‘s goal is “to outfit the lab in such a way that artists - both students and visitors - can follow their instincts and intuition. Do they want to use the voice-to-text-to-image tech for a scene? It’s available. Do they want an interactive light and sound system that responds to gestures you make while wearing a motion-capture suit? It’s also there. Do they want to use a large-language model AI system to help generate ideas for characters or plot for a play they're writing? That’s there, too” (Sumi, 2023,p. 27).

By automating previously physical tasks, generative AI can save people working in theatre time (and maybe money). AI can allow designers to quickly create striking new visual experiences, and by virtualizing tasks that were previously highly physical, it can allow people with physical disabilities and disabled artists to engage more fully in many aspects of stagecraft.

I am intrigued by this idea, as it promises to enrich teaching and learning. But when I reflect on it, this way of working seems very ‘one to one’ or ‘person to machine' to me. I fail to see how it is more valuable or creative than working in a collective or person to director. The technical side of theatre design may be supplemented with this technology, but can the human creative process and stagecraft be enhanced or even replaced with AI?

OpenAI, the American-based artificial intelligence research organization that brought us ChatGPT, has just launched its latest AI application called Sora after the Japanese word for sky. Sora can generate short video clips based on descriptive prompts, extend existing videos forwards or backwards in time, and generate videos from still images.” Sora (text-to-video model, in Wikipedia) This new development is an amazing leap from generative text, as it can produce film-quality animations. It poses quite a challenge to the current film making model. But will it replace human performance on film? On stage? Is there a place for AI in drama? Perhaps, but it can never replace the human element of what drama demands of everyone in ‘the room.’ The student engaged in a drama of their own making, based on their own lived experience, grounds their power to communicate in human story, not AI fiction.

When I taught online during the pandemic, I noticed the kids who acted out the most were the drama kids. Fed up with black boxes and the assessments that were delivered through Brightspace (a teaching platform adopted by TDSB for their virtual school) , online drama class seemed ludicrous to them, as it also did to me. We needed human connection, presence, that could not be provided through screens. Similarly, movie day in drama class is never popular- because it impedes the creative process by regulating students to the role of passive observer with no skin in the game. No skin. No game. Just screens. Try teaching a drama class without play. Ha! Good luck. We need play and connections and trial and risk and joy in real time, with real people. Without those things drama cannot happen. AI cannot provide that. We need to MOVE. We need to respond. We need to communicate. We need safety. Ask a drama student to invite their friends to come and observe a class and they will say no. Ask a drama student to invite a friend to come and play and they will run out into the hall and grab their friends. They want to share the JOY. Generative AI can provide entertainment, but only human interaction can provide true joy.

I remember one afternoon shortly after yet another lockdown two grade nine students came into the drama studio, took off their backpacks and shoes and proceeded to tumble together on the floor. They were simply messing about and it was physical and joyous. They had missed each other during lockdown and they expressed this physically and safely in the drama space. Drama spaces provide these opportunities for expression. Drama teaches skills that begin as play and that prove essential to human interaction. These skills will hold them in good stead in an increasingly AI influenced workforce.

In the New York Times Opinion article, “When Your Technical Skills Are Eclipsed, Your Humanity Will Matter More Than Ever” Aneesh Raman, a work force expert at LinkedIn, and Maria Flynn, president of Jobs for the Future, implore the reader to consider the arts and humanities essential for training the upcoming workforce. They write:

Technical and data skills that have been highly sought after for decades appear to be among the most exposed to advances in artificial intelligence. But other skills, particularly the people skills that we have long undervalued as soft, will very likely remain the most durable. This is a hopeful sign that A.I. could usher in a world of work that is anchored more, not less, around human ability.(Raman & Flynn, 2024, para. 1)

The skills taught through the performance arts- communication, collaboration, community, tolerance, empathy, inclusion - are the skills our world desperately needs. This is recognized by the business world as well as the arts. “Our abilities to effectively communicate, develop empathy and think critically have allowed humans to collaborate, innovate and adapt for millenia…communication is already the most in-demand skill across jobs in LinkedIn today.” (Raman & Flynn, 2024, para.2)

Let’s recognize generative AI for what it is: a powerful prop that can help train and inspire young people, but only if we call out its limitations, if we guard against its biases, and if we use it to augment but not replace human interaction and human creativity. Generative AI is a very powerful prop that can enhance or degrade drama classes, depending on how it is used in the future. For example, ChatGPT is useful as drama from source- but the drama still must be created by students in response to the text, much as they might respond to a song, an image or an event: ChatGPT can provide a way into a student-created drama, but it cannot be a replacement of that process. Drama learning is grounded in the body, and creation is communal in nature.

Furthermore, generative AI is subject to environmental biases, as we all are, but unlike humans it has no conscience or self-awareness, two things essential to the process of identifying and removing both conscious and unconscious biases. Do we want Google teaching our children drama? Probably not. Do we want Google helping educators to teach our children? Absolutely, yes.

When considering the use of generative AI in the drama classroom, ask some important questions. Why are we doing this? Is this for the sake of “staying ahead”? What biases can we see in this technology? Are we using this technology to augment human experience and creativity, or to replace it with ready-made content? How do we ensure that as educators we control this technology in the classroom, and that it does not control us? Have we got guide rails and processes in place to recognize biased, inappropriate or harmful content being produced by this technology? Do we have policies and processes in place to deal with this content when (and not “if”) it appears?

It is a provocative idea to resist machine learning for human embodied learning. The dramatic arts classroom is based upon a common experience of creation that is not digital. In this classroom the participation of students is fundamental as it creates a reality that is unique to the time and space of the class. Each individual contributes, whether as an observer, a commentator, a witness, or a participant. Drama classes should be the 75 min of screen-free, AI-free, Silicon-Valley-free time: time our students need to connect, create and flourish through the act of bodily, communal creation. The performing arts demand presence: physical & emotional.The experience is embodied and relational. It is the opposite of AI. It is a singularly human experience. Why compromise such a powerful dynamic as that?

References

Raman, A., & Flynn, M. (2024, February 14). When your technical skills are eclipsed, your humanity will matter more than ever. The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/14/opinion/ai-economy-jobs- colleges.html

Sumi, G. (2023, October 11). The Theatre of Tomorrow. University of Toronto Magazine. https://magazine.utoronto.ca/research-ideas/technology/the-theatre-of-tomorrow-bmo-lab-for-creative- research/

Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, February 26). Sora (text-to-video model). Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sora_(text-to- video_model)#:~:text=Sora%20is%20a%20text%2Dto,generate%20videos%20from%20still%20images.