What seems like an aeon ago, we held our annual Company Conference, a brilliant and energised coming together of people with a range of connections to the company – from staff to board members, freelance technicians to designers, students to consultants. Andrew Melchior and Richard Babington led sessions on technology in practice, and we discussed at length the potential impact of AI on our world.
Looking back 6 months later, it feels useful to reflect on the wisdom and ideas that came through those discussions and on the differences this explosion of technological possibility is making.
It was useful that our groups – much like our team – consisted of a mixture of creatives, technical experts and organisers who administrate and structure our operations. What does ‘AI’ mean for these people? What were people worried about, excited about, and hoping for?
AI as we understand it is a system of many parts in its own right, but it is also a marketing term that catches a wider range of digital functions that have been in regular use for many, many years – transcription, image generation, for example. For many, the pace of change is an unsettling factor.
Drilling down into the processes that AI can cover created a distinction between people’s worries and their excitement around its potential. Replacing repetitive tasks with little to no intrinsic value? Yes please. Replacing artistic output? A hard no for all of us in these discussions. More importantly, a recognition of the importance of the creative journeys we take on our way to an endpoint – for learning, for authenticity, for sense and error checking, for evolution – and the hole that is left if we are deprived of it by handing too much to AI. And yes, process and strategy design, as well as artistic work, is included here.
Ethically, there were issues too – particularly the idea of replacement. Using digital tools (which include AI but also things like 3D printing and SketchUp) to make useful efficiencies was seen as a benefit, while as soon as this encroached on what a person would normally have done, there was a red line. This is hard to argue with – after all, we don’t want to replace the jobs of our colleagues with automation; however, the line at which this ceases to be an efficiency for one person and becomes an encroachment on another is harder to pin down. At what point in time do we agree a job should have existed when it no longer does? Where is the draughtsman, the sculptor, the studio engineer even now?
The impact on audiences was also discussed – coming from the perspective of an organisation that interacts face to face with people, where an experience is felt that cannot be replicated remotely, or in a single image. When designing shows, does the hi-res gloss of an AI-generated image create a false sense of what is possible for clients? God forbid such an image should find its way onto marketing materials too!
Away from Claude and ChatGPT, many other forms of digital tech are changing events and how people experience them – are phones at events a bad thing, distracting audiences from the person-to-person connection with a performance…? Or a good thing, enhancing the experience through AR, information, even participation? The answer, of course, is both.
This is not a binary scenario, and there are no binary answers. It is a new landscape, and as with all landscapes, we need to prepare to navigate it. How we do that is up to us, but we feel better collectively to feel informed, to understand where and how this can affect us on the day to day, and how we can benefit without betraying our ethical or artistic positions.
We are now in a world where answers are at our fingertips, but we must continue to judge whether they are the right answers. (Or the right questions!) Only a human in the loop prevents the loss of control to information that may be fast but might be misleading, or the piece of work that was produced quickly but lacks connection and authenticity. We’re now working to a digital strategy that has to try and work within these contexts, which are also changing all the time – trying to stay competitive, but protect what matters, which is our own experience, skill, decision-making and thought.
We have detailed notes on our breakout discussions and would be happy to share them on request. Please contact [email protected]
Sessions included:
Implications of Digital to the Nature of Our Face-to-Face Work
Positives and Negatives of Digital in Walk the Plank’s Work
Positives and Negatives of Digital in Your Personal Job Role
And be sure to sign up to next year’s Company Conference – details will follow later this year!