Theatre among ‘safest’ art forms amid rise of AI – public poll

Theatre emerged as one of the "safest" areas of the arts in terms of AI in the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra’s annual audience research, which this year commissioned a national poll on public attitudes to the tech for the first time.

Live music concerts were also deemed safe from AI by respondents – but recorded music was believed to be slightly more under threat.

Half (50%) of respondents said AI would have replaced humans in making studio-recorded music by 2050, and 53% said the same for photography, which was the area considered to be most at risk of a tech takeover. 

Overall, respondents were more than twice as likely to think AI would stifle innovation (56%) rather than enhance it (21%) – although some suggested it could be used effectively for sound mixing. 

Music emerged as an area of particular worry, with more than half of respondents (51%) highlighting the possibility of music being copied without the original artists being correctly remunerated. 

Thirty-eight percent of respondents expressed concern about AI’s impact on career pathways, believing that students would not pursue music at school because they did not perceive sustainable futures in the industry. 

“In many ways, human creativity and AI can coexist because they offer different strengths," Vasily Petrenko, music director of the RPO, reflected on the findings of the poll. 

"The RPO research revealed that the public felt AI could be used successfully to enhance the production side of recording music – such as the mastering of new recorded music and the restoration and audio enhancement of archive recordings. 

"In terms of the creation of music, AI may in theory offer perfection, but great art is often art precisely because of human imperfections implicit within the shape and form of the piece."