CMU School of Drama


Monday, October 11, 2021

Could It Be Sentience or Just Expert Coding? The Emerging Role of Robots in the Arts

AMT Lab @ CMU: Few innovations represent the intersection of humanity and technology more famously than that of the robot. Like art, robots are the result of humanity’s urge to create something new in its own image – and, also like art, they have become an inescapable part of our world. In the 21st century, robots have surpassed the limitations which restricted them to industrial manufacturing and technological research, now occupying roles across all industries and disciplines. Incorporating robotics into the arts industry blends two very different expressions of human creativity: bringing exciting new technological innovations to the arts and giving robotics a touch of humanity.

2 comments:

Phoebe Huggett said...

I think it’s very interesting how much theatre appears to be changing as technologies develop in other fields and we bring them into the fold in new ways. I for one look forward to seeing how this happens. It’s weird, we adapt a lot from other places but from what I see theatre tends to be very mired in tradition. I’ve been exposed to more recently, and my question has become how far can I take theatre, what still counts as it? From there I then ask if that matters for me particularly, and no, as long as I am flexing those same skills required for theatre then I should be satisfied. I would like be conscious of moving forward in theatre with the goal of doing it with new things, pushing the field and myself to learn a new medium as I go, not to get bogged down in the same ways.

Liberty Lapayowker said...

Pertaining to robots as a tool, I agree with this article that “robots will not replace humans in the arts anytime soon”. It is true that there are maybe a few situations where having a robot as an actor works, but in the theatre industry, I agree with the notion that the most important party is eliciting an emotional response from the audience which simply isn’t as effective via a robot. I find the idea of “robots as intermediaries” to be interesting because although there is nothing like physically being in a museum yourself, this is the closest experience many people could get during the pandemic. As mentioned, they allowed the robots to physically move from piece to piece, allowing the viewer to feel like they were walking from one piece to another. I like how there was so much attention to detail, even if they may seem small to some people. In the theatre industry, I feel as though this concept has been taken on a larger scale with many Broadway professionally recorded shows coming out. Although they didn’t necessarily use AI to do this, I think it bring the same message across which is to make art accessible during the pandemic, and now after to those that are still not able to visit these museums or see shows on Broadway.