HowlRound Theatre Commons: Artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, and generative art conjure up images ranging from mesmerizing to downright terrifying. Our popular culture is suffused with adversarial depictions of robots or AI draining all happiness, creativity, and life from humanity.
10 comments:
I chose this article because I've seen a lot of AI generated art recently, and I think it always produces really fascinating material - not necessarily good, but very interesting to look at. In fact, I actually remember seeing DeepDream stuff on Google in the 2010s, and having no idea what it was because I was a kid. It's really crazy to think that this technology is now being employed in scenic design, and it's also interesting to hear that it's being used as a tool. Instead of being used as a set-generating machine, it's used to provide quick inspiration for designers, which seems way more effective. Though I'm not a scenic designer nor particularly interested in scenic design, I can absolutely see how this would be very exciting for a designer, and I anticipate seeing whether or not this trend catches on.
This was a very nuanced and interesting article on the pros and cons of AI usage in theater. Whenever a new technology arises, there seems to be a wave of people make snap judgements that are usually exaggerated calling whatever the new thing is the greatest thing ever or the worst thing ever. This article really closely examined how AI, and specifically AI generative images can be used by designers in theater and what that looks like. I really appreciated the step-by-step process of inputting prompts to get images and then fine-tuning the prompts to really get the designer going where they need to go. Forsee did a great job of explaining where a designer might hit a roadblock using generative images and have to then take the next stop of designing on their own. These generative images are really just tools for designer to use just like Pinterest but offer specificity that was not possible before. I’m excited to see whether AI generative images become a standard step in the research process for designers.
I had never thought of using AI in terms of projections and media, I feel like that makes complete sense, yet I had just not thought of it. It’s interesting to think about how that could be used in tandem with music, for concerts, shows, etc… I love that the article addressed design, the first portion of time while I was reading, I was thinking about how this technology would affect designers. The photos produced by AI shown in the article look like a scenic designer’s rendering; while I believe that many would use this technology to inspire themselves or draw ideas, I also see individuals using exactly what the AI produces as their design. Then there’s the follow up question to that, is using something directly drawn by AI as a design considered to be “wrong?” Some would say yes, others would say no, but that’s a whole different conversation.
Learning about the different uses of artificial intelligence has been super interesting to me. Although I’ve somewhat seen some of the technical uses of artificial intelligence, I haven’t really heard or thought about its use in the theater industry. Although I guess now thinking about it, I’ve definitely seen artificial intelligence being used for Disney rides or other theme park attractions. For example, I remember being 8 or so years old, going through the haunted mansion ride around halloween time and seeing the projections of ghosts and monsters on the wall. I think it will be very interesting to see how the usage of artificial intelligence in set design will develop throughout the years. Like rather than the technology just being used for backgrounds, the technology actually being used for physical moveable objects. I am very interested to see artificial intelligence systems hopefully become more interactive, I think it would definitely add to the experience very nicely.
Recently I have seen a lot of examples of how AI has been used into art and how it will change the industry. An example that I saw recently with increasing number of discussions on is this app and how AI has been used in replacement of illustrators when it comes to illustrations. In addition, the discussion on if AI learning from different artworks count as infringe on the artists rights and if the people who are making the AI art should pay for the artworks that used for the AI learning process. The discussion on the AI art recently has been heavily leaning towards if it replaces human made digital arts and if artists would still be a thing after two years. While this discussion does raise the question of whether human made art is better than the AI art as AI can do it in a faster and more accurate way.
So, pretty immediately before I even started reading the article I was wondering if the AI they would be talking about was actually meant for theater originally. I think this is just because of how many conversations I’ve had that people have talked about a lot of theatrical things (tools, programs, etc) that weren't specifically designed for theater but adapted to work for our needs. But this article made me ponder this idea a little more: even if it wasn’t “originally meant for theater” doesn’t make it any less useful or interesting to incorporate into production designs. And, this idea of utilizing AI for designs is super interesting to me. The examples the author shows were intriguing (and the images were beautiful!)- looked like a designer could use this to get an idea of the direction they wanted to go. I’m interested in seeing where this continues to grow in theater.
I don’t know man, I think artificially intelligent text to image programs are just like any other kind of tool in the shop yknow? It’s like I don’t get why people think it’s such a different beast or breed than anything else, it’s just like google image search but more open ended. But to me, it doesn’t feel like AI is the other performer in a show like the article talks about. It’s feels like it’s just a means to an end. Or how they describe wanting the relationship between theatre and new technology to be embraced rather than discouraged. When people say stuff like that, I think of the video games in like Walmart where you stood in front of a camera and you’d like move along with the screen prompts and it would catch it on the camera and project it on the screen. That’s kind of what I imagine AI will be like in theatre.
I recently had the opportunity to experiment with text-to-image AI (Stable Diffusion and DALL-e Mini) - and it’s fascinating how initially accessible and open-source these programs are. I’ve worked with Machine Learning before, and it’s really interesting to begin to dive into the programs themselves, and see how they are developed. It’s an interesting tool to use and surprising (and exciting) to experiment with, even without going into the code itself. A few words generates an image sometimes like the thing you were picturing or sometimes wildly different - and it’s an incredible visualization tool. As the article acknowledges AI is neither good nor is it bad, but it certainly isn’t neutral. AI is created by humans and therefore also holds the biases of its creators and the internet-scraped datasets that it learns from. I think AI could serve as a very useful visualization and experimentation tool for theaters and designers - and it’ll be interesting to see how the tool develops and is used as time progresses.
I am not surprised at all by this to be quite frank. Especially in the earlier day, COVID 19 was not taken seriously. Arguably, it isn’t taken seriously enough today. A lot goes into a production and i wish that COVID 19 were on that priority list. In general, I wish health and wellbeing was. The fast pace of the film and tv industry leaves so much to hang loose and be taken advantage of. In the article the officer talks about various instances of negligence towards precautions for COVID 19 and those costs. I will also state that while productions are absolutely responsible for taking care of their cast and crew, in many cases they just reflect a government sentiment. Like in the cases of COVID 19 test scarcity. The story of spending hundreds and even thousands or even ten thousands for COVID 19 related products truly embodies how absurd the economical disadvantage the lower income population has when it comes to health.
I adore the supernatural, surreal, and near fantastical effect of Artificial Intelligence Generated images. The way that new works can be created through looking and analyzing previous pieces. I adore it. I think that there is something to be said about how poetic it is that new is created by old, a clear reflection to the artist’s cycle of creation. That cycle of someone getting inspired by a piece and learning in a way that elevates you. Make an art piece, this piece can then lend itself to being the inspiration of another artist, which starts a cycle all over again. The article talks about how this technology is being used to better the set design of this concept. I think it is quite interesting. According to the article “These generative models can complement and expand your toolkit as a designer or theatremaker.”, which can be interpreted as someone being giving another layer of creative possibility.
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