USC School of Dramatic Arts students perform in last year’s production of Love and Information, a play that explores communication, connection and human interaction. (Photo/Vic Grzesiuk)
The Creatives Preparing for a Shifting Landscape
The USC School of Dramatic Arts is preparing its students to use AI in a changing creative environment.
Across USC’s schools and campuses, researchers, faculty and practitioners are developing innovative solutions for societal issues, imagining new approaches to making art and finding ways for creators to prepare for a shifting landscape as AI increasingly intersects with different fields.
Under USC President Beong-Soo Kim’s leadership, advancing ethical AI that puts people first has become a university priority — building on USC’s legacy of innovation while preparing the next generation of researchers, scientists, engineers, entrepreneurs, artists and health professionals.
Artificial intelligence was a major driving force behind the overlapping SAG-AFTRA and Writers Guild of America strikes of 2023 that paralyzed the entertainment industry. “[Writers] were so concerned about how AI was going to exploit them,” says Dean Emily Roxworthy of the USC School of Dramatic Arts. “To be honest, up to this point, that’s really all we’ve seen.”
Roxworthy believes artists should take a more proactive approach: Actors and creatives need to be leaders in shaping their professional futures.
To address this need, the school recently announced the opening of the new Institute for Actor-Driven Innovation (IAI).
“The institute is meant to empower not only actors, but also creatives across USC and the USC alumni community, and even the greater Los Angeles creative economy,” Roxworthy says.
One way the IAI plans to give creatives a seat at the table is through the conversation series “Creativity in Control: Actors, Innovation, and AI,” sponsored by the Adobe Foundation.
“These conversations will bring together actors, corporate AI leaders and creative innovators for dynamic discussions about how performers and professionals across the creative industries can harness emerging technologies while championing the distinctly human qualities that no machine can replicate,” Roxworthy says. “Together, speakers will explore how these forces are shaping the future of the entertainment industry, the resilience of the creative economy and the importance of human-centered technology design.”
She believes conversations of this kind and other work the IAI plans to do can steer the AI evolution in more humane and exciting directions. Other programming will include workshops and master classes, as well as lab time to allow students from across the university and USC alumni to learn about and experiment with AI technology.
Read the entire series: USC at the Leading Edge of AI
Part 1: The Business Students | Part 2: The Pharmaceutical Developers | Part 3: The Creatives | Part 4: The Filmmaker | Part 5: The Urban Planners
