Shortly after ChatGPT launched, prominent technologists penned an open letter calling for a “pause” in advanced artificial intelligence development. Their concern was the pace at which the systems were evolving – faster than society’s ability to deliberate about their uses and consequences.
Although I am not a technologist, that moment in March 2023 stuck with me and raised the question: what can my field contribute to addressing this challenge?
Technical know-how alone cannot sufficiently address the ethical questions surrounding AI. Issues around trust, power, bias, ownership, transparency and responsibility are all too human. We need spaces where people can slow down, pose complex questions, listen to one another, think deeply and imagine collectively what responsible AI design and deployment could look like.
- Teaching ethics and sustainability through fiction
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So practices such as theatre, that are rooted in human connection, empathy and imagination, offer a valuable set of tools to examine and uphold human principles.
How theatre techniques can help us explore ethics of AI
With support from the Institute for Creativity, Arts, and Technology at Virginia Tech, I have been collaborating with computer scientist Hoda Eldardiry to explore whether and how applied theatre might help students grapple with the ethics of AI in new and productive ways. Our goal is to give computer science students opportunities to imagine the ethical implications of AI design, use and policy choices and practise the kinds of associated conversations they may one day face in professional settings.
Why is this important?
Many of the computer science and engineering students who will design tomorrow’s AI systems are extraordinarily knowledgeable and technically skilled in those domains. But proficiency in hard skills alone does not necessarily prepare someone to navigate ethical disagreements in a room full of colleagues who might hold different values, as well as the public at large. If you are deciding between design choices that would prioritise or jeopardise autonomy, privacy or trustworthiness, for example, you need the ability to articulate your reasoning, listen to competing perspectives and work through difficult trade-offs. These, fundamentally, are interpersonal skills.
Applied theatre offers a powerful way to cultivate those skills. In our workshops, students engage in exercises drawn from applied improvisation, such as story circles, image theatre and forum theatre. Participants share personal experiences with AI, reflect on the ethical dilemmas they have encountered and dramatise those tensions in physical montages and short scenes. These scenes might depict, for instance, a team of engineers debating whether to deploy a generative AI app despite concerns about bias or a student falsely accused of using AI in coursework. The scenes bridge emotional and artificial intelligence, philosophical exploration and practical application, and playful improvisation with serious examination of a global issue. They become catalysts for discussion and ideas.
Audience members can pause the action, step into the scene and propose alternative decisions. The goal is to make the ethical dimensions of AI visible and to offer students a low-stakes space to practise navigating them together.
What has struck me most in this work is how quickly vibrant discussions about AI move beyond abstract platitudes to highly individual experiences – stories about loved ones’ overuse of chatbots as proxy “therapists” as well as self-doubt about their creative capacities and job prospects as they transition into the workforce. These experiences raise urgent questions about care, access, fairness and trust.
Space to reflect and experiment
The engineers who design tomorrow’s systems and policymakers who craft laws will still need deep technical expertise. But they will also need the vision to foresee potential benefits and consequences in AI development and dissemination, as well as the confidence and communication skills to advocate for ethical choices when it matters most. In many ways, theatre provides a rehearsal space for those conversations.
It might seem like a paradox but actors rehearse scenes so that when the curtain rises, they are ready to respond authentically in the moment. Applied theatre works in a similar way. It allows participants to experiment with ideas, navigate and leverage productive conflict, and reflect on their values in a setting where learning – rather than winning an argument – is the goal.
As it evolves, AI will continue to reshape our institutions, cultures, ways of working and relationships. Amid this momentum, we in higher education can make space for those who will be building and regulating these systems to think critically about their responsibilities and aims as they do so.
Jon Catherwood-Ginn is assistant professor of applied theatre in the School of Performing Arts and co-director of research for the Center for Communicating Science at Virginia Tech.
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