Curtis Campbell has something to say about AI in the arts

In this episode Curtis Campbell joins host Phil Rickaby to talk about AI in the theatre. In the lead up to this summer’s Toronto Fringe, it was noticed that a number of shows were using AI generated posters, which sparked a discourse on social media about whether Generative AI should be used in the Fringe and beyond. This conversation spread to the Edinburgh Fringe, where AI generated posters were also seen.

In this episode Curtis and Phil talk about AI, its use in the arts, and whether AI should be embraced or avoided.

Note: in this episode, Curtis mentions a video that Phil published about his poster creation process. That video can be found here.

Guest: 🎭 Curtis Campbell

Curtis Campbell is a writer and theatre artist. Some previous credits as a writer and director include Katherine Is Not A Communist, Imp, BETR With Bevan and Color Me Pablo. His novel Dragging Mason County was be published by Annick Press in 2023. His plays Gay For Pay with Blake & Clay and Blake & Clay’s Gay Agenda were Fringe hits.

Connect with Curtis

🌐 website: campwrites.weebly.com

📸 Instagram: @curtisdangcampbell

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Transcript

[Phil Rickaby]
Hello, welcome to Stageworthy. I’m Phil Rickaby, the host and producer of this podcast. Stageworthy is Canada’s theatre podcast, and on Stageworthy, I talk to theatre makers of all kinds, from actors to directors to playwrights and more.

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Let’s get into this episode. If you were looking at social media in the weeks leading up to the Toronto Fringe, you may have seen a lot of people talking about shows using AI generated posters, and you know how the use of AI goes against the ethos of the Fringe. There was a similar conversation going on at this year’s Edinburgh Fringe where that was also an issue.

One of the voices leading the charge against the use of AI at the Toronto Fringe was Curtis Campbell. Curtis is an author, playwright, director, and educator. And in this episode, he joined me to talk about AI, how we’re seeing more and more of its use in the arts world, and why that’s a bad thing.

Now here’s my conversation with Curtis Campbell. Curtis Campbell, thank you so much for joining me. It is it’s been a couple of years since you were here last you were here for your play, Gay for Pay with Blake and Clay.

And so it’s been a few years, but we are here to talk about what I think is kind of an important topic. And this sort of came up around maybe a month, a month and a half out from Fringe. I think you were the person who first raised the alarm about companies using AI posters in their promotional materials for the Toronto Fringe.

And I think this is the first year that we’ve really seen that. To my knowledge, yeah. Yeah.

Now let’s get out of the way. Let’s define this thing. It’s generative AI.

It’s large language models and generative image AI that we’re talking about specifically here. That’s just to be specific. We’re talking about a language guessing machine and an image guessing machine.

So let’s just start off with what was your first thought when you saw the AI posters?

[Curtis Campbell]
I was pretty revolted. The lack of solidarity that was on display. I think artists writ large right now need to be showing a clear and definitive show of solidarity with one another.

And the idea that artists coming into the Toronto Fringe would use generative AI in their marketing. Yeah, it was a complete lack. It showed no interest in the fact that this is an exploitative product being forced on the public.

But it showed no regard for the fact that that is that is a product that is built on theft, that is built on the theft of other people’s art, non-consensual, non-consensually. And the fact that that wasn’t enough to, I mean, on top of the environmental issues and the political issues attached to it. The fact that that was not enough for them to stop and think, oh, maybe this is not the thing that I like.

Maybe this is actually bad. And maybe that this clearly communicates to everyone that I do not care about other artists, that this is purely about me and what I see as like a business move for myself, which, you know, that’s its own that’s its own can of worms. But yeah, there was I was like, you had to put in at least some work into this.

And at no point did you stop to think, oh, I would hate my work to be non-consensually taken by a massive company that can certainly afford to pay artists to develop something that I still think should not be developed and is, you know, a net evil in the world. But yeah, I was I was disappointed. I was angry.

And I I wanted to put that on blast. And I did. And I mean, if I was the first person that brought it to people’s attention, I kind of think that I wasn’t because the the the feedback that I got was instantaneous.

And it was a lot of people sliding into my DM saying, oh, my God, thank you so much for posting that. And I was a little disappointed that as well as like, well, we can all post that we should all be posting this. And then a lot of people reposted my original post, which, you know, great.

And I mean, I should put a blanket over this, which I hate social media. I fucking hate Instagram. I only I was gone for I was off for ages and I came back for work stuff.

And I was like, you know what? While I’m here, fuck this. But yeah, I was I was just like, when did it?

When did it become acceptable to be so like uncool as an artist? Like, that’s really uncool. That’s really lame.

That’s you’re a fucking loser. And like, do you are you not worried about your your street cred? Are you not worried about how like, how deeply uncool you look?

I don’t know. I’m the I recently read did you read? It’s called blank space, a cultural history of the 21st century.

No, it’s really good. The the author whose name I’m, of course, blanking on sort of writes about the 21st century through this this lens of what he calls optimism, which is this idea that like, you know, in the 80s and 90s, selling out was the worst thing you could do. And then in the new millennia, the new millennium, it was the the best thing that you could do.

And it actually showed that your work had value and that you as an artist had value and that we’ve now valued the idea of selling out as like a moral good and a sign of quality. And that was all I saw on display with these with these posters.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, the. I want to get into a lot of this stuff about A.I. because, you know, I, I am I’m an A.I. hater in my day job. I am forced to use it, although I reject it as often as possible.

[Curtis Campbell]
I’ve never actually used it knowing. I mean, I’m sure I have because it’s, you know, these tech companies are fast tracking it and sort of trying to break as many, you know, break the system as much as possible. So, yeah, suddenly, oh, it’s it’s you know, it’s inevitable.

Move fast, break laws and hope that legislation doesn’t quite catch up with you, which is what they’re doing. But I, to my knowledge, have not used it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, I didn’t want to. But, you know, when you’re the the job that pays your rent, makes it mandatory, you do the bare minimum. Sure.

So I do have some experience with it reluctantly. But so I want to get into some of the the bigger things about A.I. in a little bit. But first, I want to.

Let’s talk about some of the the excuses that that I heard about the use of A.I. art.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. As if the Toronto Fringe hasn’t been around since, like, what, 1989?

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, I mean, I’m going to say right off the top, like a year a year ago, this wouldn’t have been an issue and people would have made it work somehow. They would have found something. Right.

But the excuses, the excuse that I hear is, but I’m not a graphic designer.

[Curtis Campbell]
None of us are.

[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t know anything about making a poster, so I have no choice. Oh, but also I’m I’m I’m I have no money. I’m doing the Fringe.

There’s no money for a poster. What else could I do?

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah, I want to some some, you know, theatre admin twink put me on blast for, I guess, not supporting the community, which, you know, I found very like nothing. That’s sort of a nothing. That’s not even really an argument.

Like, I mean, to begin with, I I find it really kind of disgusting how people use hide behind the word community now. If you’re a part of a community, you actually are beholden to that community. You have a responsibility towards that community.

It’s not just something that you can hide behind to just like abdicate responsibility. You know, I’m actually here trying to protect this community from from this, like this extractive thing that is trying to replace us. And this idea that I’m not supporting the community, you know, community doesn’t the idea of community and the theatre community, it’s not there to just serve you.

You actually are there to serve it. And I found that kind of repugnant. But, you know, his his argument was something along along the lines of, like, how dare I punch down at other artists when it’s the the funding bodies I need to be directing my ire at to which I was just like, let me you’re right.

Let me go get let me go look up the the production grants that I got for my friend shows. Let me go look let me go look those up. Let me go rifle through my oh wait, there isn’t any like what are you talking about?

None of us are getting money for this. There’s no like, like none of us are getting a production grant for a friend show and like writing in the marketing line into our budget. That’s just never been a thing.

You you rely on your friends, you rely on yourself to learn new things like you skill share. These are all doable things that actually engage with this community that you speak of. Yeah.

Repugnant.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the thing that struck me is, you know, I’ve I’m not a graphic designer, but since I started doing friends, I’ve made every poster that I’ve used.

[Curtis Campbell]
Phil, you did that video about like really laying out your process. And I I really want to commend you for that. I thought it was fantastic.

Like if anyone has not seen it, it is on your Instagram, I believe. Yeah, it is so worth a look into the process because, yeah, I’m not either. Look, when we did Gay for Pay, I went on to Canva and made some graphics for the show.

I did a like comedy drama mask, but instead of the frown and smile, they had rainbows, you know, gay pride, yada, yada. And that was really fun. And we I sort of learned trial by fire style.

And then for Gay Agenda for the second show, you know, I asked my partner, who is, you know, a an amateur photographer to take some photos. We I believe we borrowed the cabaret space at Soulpepper because somebody knew a house tech there. And then other than that, it cost, I think, like ten bucks for props.

And and then I designed those posters. And I’m really proud of those posters because, one, everyone’s, you know, hard work is on display. My partner’s photos are phenomenal.

But it it cost nothing and looked so fucking good. And I was so proud of myself that I put this thing together that I could then compare to the year before to this, like, you know, goofy, dinky Canva graphics thing. And aside from all of that, what matters is the word of mouth once your show starts.

So I’m sorry. Write a good show. Do a good show.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. The poster is supposed to get you attention. Right.

The poster needs to be an image that gets you attention. And that’s why I think the most striking posters I’ve ever seen are a goddamn photograph. Yes.

Right. It’s a photograph of the actors, one of the actors, all of the actors. It’s something.

And it’s visually interesting. And you just take a fuck ton of pictures. You find one that’s really visually stunning and you are visually interesting and you use it.

[Curtis Campbell]
And I guess the hard thing, Phil, the hard thing is that none of us have access to cameras. You know, like, do you know a friend who maybe has a camera and could take pictures for you? Yeah.

And then maybe someone who could throw some graphics. And I also I have to I have to I have to rant here like I the way that we all make the L.L.L. capitalism bad joke and then speak and think exclusively in capital is disgusting. Like, well, I like if I can’t pay somebody for this, it shouldn’t happen.

And I shouldn’t do it as if there aren’t a million people looking to make connections with other people making fringe shows, trying to get in there like who you can still share with. You can offer them something. They can offer something for you.

Like why? The way that everyone all these excuses keeps falling back on like, well, like I sort of have to live under capitalism, tee hee hee. Yeah, it’s gross.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the idea that like and again, I will say prior to this year, you just would have found a way you just would have found a way, my friend.

[Curtis Campbell]
And honestly, you would have learned a lot. And yeah, I did.

[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t know anything about graphic design. And then suddenly I did. Exactly.

And you know what? Now that I know something about like how how to make a good poster, I think about every poster for a show that I’m making. Oh, yeah.

Like I am now like when I’m writing it, what would the poster for this look like? Because that to me is an essential part of the creation of the show.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. And to your point as well in your video, which again is excellent and really walks you through. I think it was really great that you were able to use like here is the original poster didn’t quite work for me.

I couldn’t quite figure out why did a run of the show because you did it was the same show and then different posters for the show. That’s right. Yeah.

A fantastic example of like and here’s what I did for the second run of the show. And I found it much more effective and it is a much more effective design. Yeah.

And very well done. But my my partner brought up a really great point the other day, which was. If we are going to see more and more posters, which I think I think the the memory of like, oh, my God, I don’t want to come to your show if it has an A.I. poster like it has started to take or maybe that’s just my algorithm. I don’t know what is reality anymore. If everything is going to become this like glossy, like dimensionless design at all times, having the ability to put together a human made poster is going to stand out. So it is actually in your benefit to learn how to do this.

[Phil Rickaby]
Absolutely. One of the one of the things I remember somebody I was going back and forth with somebody, actually, I think they commented on my video and one of my friends, they got pilloried for using Canva. And I think I know what show they’re referring to for using Canva.

[Curtis Campbell]
I don’t use everybody. Everybody use Canva.

[Phil Rickaby]
Exactly.

[Curtis Campbell]
No.

[Phil Rickaby]
And now my response to that is I think I know what show and they weren’t they were not pilloried for using Canva. They were pilloried for using the clearly marked A.I. generative image creation of Canva. Yeah.

You can’t accidentally use the A.I. in a in an application like Canva.

[Curtis Campbell]
No, because it it’s there’s a there’s a paywall.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. But even if you’re using the paid, even if you’re using the paid product, the A.I. generated generative stuff is clearly marked.

[Curtis Campbell]
And you and you have. Yeah. And if you’re generating something, you have to prompt it.

So like, no, we weren’t we weren’t coming for you for using Canva. It’s the Toronto Fringe. We’re all using Canva.

We came for you because you used A.I. and well, we should. You should be shamed. I’m sorry.

Where did shame go? Can we like what what are we doing? The shamelessness is so embarrassing.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
Like have some standards, have some pride in the work that you’re putting out there. It’s all a part of your project. You were representing your project.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the thing for me is that. To me, nobody nobody understands. Your show like you do know nobody can communicate your show like you do.

If you go if you find a graphic artist to work with. If you if you don’t have the time or can’t do a Canva poster, if you find a graphic artist and that you can for fringe, trust me, they’re going to ask you questions when you describe your show. Right.

They’re going to clarify they’re going to work with you and they’re going to present you with an image and then you’ll be able to revise. Right. Yeah.

A.I. spits out some garbage and you choose one. And if you reprompt it, spits out new garbage.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. Yeah. And yeah.

And that’s the thing. And again, like what human relations are we completely siloing ourself off from when we say, like, well, I can’t I couldn’t possibly ask someone to help me with this or to skill share with them like you’re going to you’re going to keep running into this problem of like, well, I don’t know anybody. I don’t I couldn’t I don’t want to ask anybody.

And it’s like, OK, hon, but like you do have to grow up at a certain point and and reach out and get in touch with other people and build a say it with me community. Yeah. It’s we are again, we are internalizing the logic of capitalism at all times while being like I’m making art that’s really important and actually rejects capitalism.

And then all we do is is is behave within it. And it’s yeah, it’s nothing you’re it’s nothing.

[Phil Rickaby]
Here’s a fallacy that I’ve heard. And it is. Painters once feared photography.

And photography didn’t kill painting. So why?

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah, that’s comparable.

[Phil Rickaby]
Different. You know, I’ve heard this before. Right.

[Curtis Campbell]
I’ve heard this photography like like poisoning the water and air of entire black communities in Mississippi. No. Oh, sorry.

No, it wasn’t. Was it was it making painters obsolete by actively seeking out companies that employ those those painters and then trying to replace them? No.

Was it was it being used to force the building of data centers that are hoarding fresh water in already water scarce areas? Microsoft reported 41 percent of their data centers in twenty twenty three came from places that already had like very fragile access to water. Forty one percent.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
And you want to talk about the sky was on fucking fire, Phil. The sky was on fire. And we wanted to talk about, well, maybe, you know, maybe you shouldn’t be so mean to me, the person using a I.

It is your problem. You are feeding it. Everything you touch, whenever you use it, you are using other people’s work that was not that was not consented to.

And you are feeding the fuck. It’s the blob, Phil. You anything it touches, feed it, feeds it and makes it bigger.

And you’re doing it. And with the fallacy that I found, what that was so gross to me, somebody reached out to me after this with like a sensibly well-intentioned message. But something they said was along the lines of like, why is it the responsibility of these artists to to to to keep the fringe free of AI?

Why is it on these artists to protect the fringe? And I and I did not respond to this person. But my response is who else is going to like?

We’ve seen that. We’ve seen that these these, you know, meta X, open a chat, GPT, whatever. We know that they are trying to break as much as they can so that we as fast as they can, so that we can’t organize to or legislate to fix it.

No one else is interested in protecting artists right now. We have seen that. We have seen that in a massive way since Covid.

Nobody is interested in protecting artists. We do have to protect each other and we have to protect other artists in the community. We have to protect artists that we don’t even know who are visual artists, who are poets, who are whatever.

You do owe it to them. It is up to us to protect our community and the way that we are throwing up our hands and just giving up our responsibility. What is that?

It’s shocking and it’s disgusting. Yeah, it’s disgusting. Who who am I to protect art?

[Phil Rickaby]
I don’t know an artist. Fuck me. There was somebody who said maybe the fringe should have an AI policy.

And yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
I I think they should, honestly.

[Phil Rickaby]
I’m I’m of two minds. I’m of two minds, one, because I think that they need to that, you know, AI posters should be kept out of the fringe. But also the fringe generally does not.

With a couple of exceptions, they have never had requirements for what goes on stage and what is used for promotional material. They have not.

[Curtis Campbell]
But AI is artificial intelligence, quote unquote, has changed that, unfortunately. And I think on the question of why is it up to the artists to defend art? It is also up to administration and and the gatekeepers to protect it.

And I think I think the Toronto fringe, I think every theatre company in this city should be taking an outward stance against AI and saying we will not use it in our marketing. We will not accept people using it in their production, in their in their marketing. It is up to us to protect art and protect artists.

And I think Toronto Fringe could lead the way with that. And I honestly do see them going in that direction.

[Phil Rickaby]
Good. Do you think I mean, just sort of along those lines, do you think that theatres should be required to disclose if they used AI in their marketing?

[Curtis Campbell]
Yes. And I think that they should not. I think that any theatre company right now using generative AI, they have a responsibility to protect artists.

And that does not just include, you know, the writers and the performers that includes visual artists. And it’s you know, it is it’s kind of I think we’ve gotten a little too laissez faire about like well, you couldn’t. Curtis, don’t use the slippery slope rhetoric.

You know, it’s like, look, I’m not saying gay marriage is bad and what’s it going to lead to. OK, I’m not I’m not that guy. But my God, we have to think of the slippery slope.

You know, first they came for the graphic designers and I said nothing because I was not a graphic designer. Writers, writers are becoming replaceable. We’re seeing that.

And like, you know, let’s protect the gate now where it is being stormed, because, you know, at some point they’re going to come through with the big wolf of Beardor guy that comes in and smashes the gates to minister if everything does relate back to Lord of the Rings with me.

[Phil Rickaby]
Of course it does.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and we’re going to be like, oh, no, what could we have done?

We had no way of knowing that they were going to like bring this giant thing. And it’s a while you saw it from a million miles away. It’s huge and it’s got a mouthful of fire.

Are you talking about?

[Phil Rickaby]
I think there is another thing. That goes on with the these generative A.I. companies, with all of these companies, and it is. That they are relying on being too big to fail.

Oh, and it’s inevitable. It is inevitable, inevitable. If you look at how much Facebook meta pumped into the metaverse before the the investors said that’s enough wasting our money now.

Yeah. And now we have seven companies that are spending trillions of dollars to make millions while also passing around the same seven million dollars and calling a profit every time they loan it to each other.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah, it’s and and calling it inevitable. And again, they moved before there was any legislature, any legislation about this. I something that really like is a bit of a OK, I’m going to start screaming now.

Point for me is these people who are so happy to use A.I. in their marketing, you know, especially in the like, well, I’m an actor and I just really want to get myself out there. And it’s again like, OK, so they can replace the graphic designers. Now what happens when they can replace actors?

Something that, you know, we had we watched a whole lot of strikes to happen in the States over like we know that that’s an option. But I. I.

In, I think, twenty twenty four, maybe early twenty twenty five, one of my novels was used in what was essentially this big scrape and dump by Metai, so they had scraped a pirating a book pirating source and fed all of those books into their into the algorithm that was training their I. And this was then leaked. And all of the authors, you know, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of authors that were on the list, you only found out about it afterwards, after it had already been done and the damage had already been done in the training had already been done.

And there was no legal recourse. So we know that they’re going to move fast, and we also know that like they have there are people who are affecting government policy, who are in bed with with big tech, like, you know, we saw that at Trump’s inauguration with with with Mark Zuckerberg and, you know, whatever sort of homoerotic relationship that’s going on between Musk and Trump. I think they’ve given each other handjobs.

That’s my theory. At least once. Well, no, he’s I think he’s given Elon a hand a handjob.

I think I think Elon is like, if I give the handjob, it’s gay. But if I get the handjob, it’s not gay. That’s my theory.

But like we we know we know that it is this like, actually an actual conspiracy. You know, that’s Naomi Klein puts it really well in doppelganger. She’s like, you know, the the proliferation of conspiracy culture.

What is so maddening about it is there are real conspiracies. They’re just boring. And we see them play out every day.

Yeah. And one of them is big tech is in bed with with the government with an increasingly fascist American government and and in bed with with with fucking with Carney. And like, you know, we’re again, we’re like debating this as he fast tracks another pipeline.

And the sky is burning and they want to use more of Canada’s freshwater, which something that is already becoming increasingly under threat as the water wars loom like we can debate that all we want. But until you’ve I don’t know, I’m like, look, until you’ve had your work fed into the air, I shut up. I don’t want to hear from you.

[Phil Rickaby]
There there is, you know, there’s you know, there’s a real rush to build data centers, right?

[Curtis Campbell]
Well, there’s a real rush to turn profit off A.I. after all this money has been 100 percent.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the thing is that there is no profit to be made in any way. The profit is in the real estate. The profit is to very quickly get a whole bunch of money to build an A.I. data center before the company’s collapse.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So you already have your money. And if it’s no longer needed, you can bug out and keep the money.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Right. These these company there there is a collapse coming. Yeah.

Because companies can’t lose the amount of money that’s being lost forever. And so they are going to collapse. And it’s just a matter of when.

And then. I don’t know, there’s there’s the idea of inevitability of A.I. Well, it’s it’s it’s it’s a it’s a it’s a falsehood.

[Curtis Campbell]
It’s it’s it’s an idea being sold to us and we can just reject it.

[Phil Rickaby]
It is a falsehood because, you know, the people who are saying it are the people who who who need their investors to keep spending money on it. Yeah. That’s why they keep saying what A.I. will be without ever actually being able to show what it is, because they need money to keep coming in.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. And I guess, like, again, just to relate it back to the Toronto theatre community or Canadian theatre world, it’s like I didn’t it used to be cool to be in opposition to fascist tech oligarchs. Like, isn’t that isn’t that kind of a cool hip alt thing to be?

And please stop. Please stop, like, apologizing for them. I think a part of it is that, like, people are nervous to be wrong.

Like what? But what if it does save that? What do you know?

What if the singularity happens tomorrow? It saves all of us. And it’s incredible.

And it’s just like it’s this hedging of the bet that is really cowardly to me because it’s like, OK, sure. Yeah, maybe you were wrong. You know, people are allowed to be wrong.

Sure. And being wrong is actually I’m wrong. I’m not.

And I won’t be. But like maybe I will be, in which case I will say, gosh, I was wrong.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. There’s nothing wrong with being wrong. You learn something.

But I would I would say I would echo something that Corey Doctorow said. If you think that the language guessing machine is one day going to guess itself into sentience and the singularity is going to happen. You’re fooling yourself.

[Curtis Campbell]
And also it’s not going to be good. I like no one’s predicting a good, fun, wholesome singularity.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, but the only the only people who are saying it’s going to be great for us are there again, the people who stand to make the most from the support and the money that it keeps getting poured into it.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. And and we do owe it to like I. There is this like.

Sort of. There’s this thing that’s been showing itself in the Toronto theatre community, this idea of like, but you know, what if what if A.I. is the way to keep artists from being exploited, which, again, not really not really a thing, because like we do need to be you’re allowed to work for free on projects that you believe in. Lots of people do it all the time.

You’re allowed to skillshare, like just give it a give give give that like one second thought, like another second. And you’ll realize, oh, there are many ways to keep us from being exploited. But like we know that this technology is built on exploitation.

And even if you you do not care that that exploitation came in the form of of, you know, of plagiarizing people’s work, then you could at least care that we also know it has been well documented that this technology is has also been built on foreign the exploitation of foreign labor, that like this is the these these like these centers in, I think, Kenya in particular, where people are paid under a dollar a day to watch absolute horror, like carnage, horror, disgusting, awful shit of people being murdered, people being brutalized and like feed it out, trim it out of the A.I. There’s there’s a story in the walrus, I think of this this Kenyan worker who was in the cleaning team and watched, I think, her sister being raped and murdered.

And that was just like a day at work. So like, if you don’t care about the artistic exploitation, which apparently we don’t, you can you should at least care about the fact that this is built on exploitative labor in a horrific way. And also that like, I don’t know, man, it it is the racism and the environmental racism at play is buck wild.

Like, again, the Mississippi thing, the fact that that Musk shifted to fossil fuel generators to keep the to keep his his his data centers running and it is poisoning the water and the air. The fact that like this is going to be a huge suck on on natural on fresh water in Canada, in a country where many indigenous communities do not have access to fresh water. And you’re sort of like putting thrown up your, you know, shrugging your shoulders at the idea of of more data centers being put in.

And I’m like, I don’t know, guys, I thought sort of like in 2020, there was this whole thing about like, Toronto and Canadian theatre companies putting out statements about how black lives matter, about how, you know, making their land acknowledge and acknowledgements while like, slowly realizing that, oh, that actually has to come with action and money. And, and like, I thought we care about black people. I thought we cared about indigenous people.

But like suddenly you don’t really care when this is a thing that can make your life a bit easier.

[Phil Rickaby]
Oh, that all went away as soon as it was it was expedient to put it away. Yeah, it’s 23. They were there.

It was all fuck that. We don’t care about it anymore.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. And it’s, you know, like the hypocrisy is a particular point of interest for me. You know, it’s a fascination of mine as a writer, like liberal hypocrisy, which a lot of, you know, Canadian nonprofit institutions are very guilty of, you know, it’s kind of kind of wild to see how few have, or not even a few, how many have really clamped down on anybody saying free Palestine, which, you know, we saw with with a runner, there was a whole thing with the runner in 2023.

But like, you know, companies that have, like, made it explicit that they’re, they’re front of house staff at anyone, their staff is not allowed to wear anything political, which is, of course, an oppressive, like inherently an oppressive thing to say, like, don’t be political. It’s like, well, what is political is is stating anything beyond the, you know, agreed upon standards. So to say that is inherently oppressive.

Like, we’ve seen them really pull back on all of that, especially as like, you know, we’re making political theatre. Thank you, TD Bank. You know, like, thank you, banks that are actively, you know, invested in a genocide, in the genocide of the Palestinian people, like, but very political.

It’s, it’s, it’s all very hypocritical. And there’s a small thing that we can control and say, we’re not going to do this. We still have them.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Did you hear about what happened in Hamilton, as far as like the AI data center went? No.

So it was voted down by city council. And then the mayor, Andre Horvath, was spoken to by an AI data center lobbyist, who then wanted to relitigate the whole thing and make sure that all of the councilors who voted against it had to have like an education session from this lobbyist before voting again.

[Curtis Campbell]
Right. So. A private, also, by the way, like, for a private interest company, like, like, like a, like a private company.

No, no, no. You’re a private company. You don’t get to educate me.

Yeah. On like, you know, well, it was a DDT, the DDT, the like, well, actually, the lobbyist from DDT does want to tell you all about the benefits of DDT.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
Like, no, you’re a private and you’re, you’re, you’re a private company. You don’t get to educate me.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I think that the question, whenever the question of data centers come up in our communities, we should all be asking the people who are proponents of it, if they would be willing to live next door to it.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. And, and knowing that the fact, the fact is that it is people of low income.

[Phil Rickaby]
That’s right.

[Curtis Campbell]
That are going to be subjected to this and they’re not going to have a say. We’ve already seen that. They don’t give a fuck.

And they’re being like forced out of that. Part of it is that the like, we’re going to make this as inhospitable as possible and force them out of this land. And now it’s ours.

Yeah. Which like, what is more Canadian than that ultimately? Absolutely.

[Phil Rickaby]
But the other thing that I think that people don’t know about the data centers is that once you build it, it’s almost immediately obsolete. Yeah. Because if you change out the chips in the servers, you have to change the whole server, which means you have to pull out all of the racks.

You have to pull out everything that was built in there and rebuild it every time.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. Oh my God. I did.

Yeah. Ooh. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
So you’re going to build it. It will immediately be need to be basically stripped down, undone, redone, and then it will be obsolete again. So the only people that are going to get the benefit from this are the people who are getting money from the investors to build it before the whole thing collapses anyway.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. I, I, you know, I thought it was cool that we actually were like taking action against the unreasonably wealthy in our society. Like I, I thought we sort of liked that, you know, I thought that was like a cool thing that we did.

And now like, again, there’s this bet, the bet hedging and then the fence sitting of all of it. And it’s, I think we, we, I don’t think I know we need to be radical about this. Like we, we, this, we need to be unapologetic about this and we need to say absolutely fucking not no to data centers, a moratorium on data centers for at least a year while we get a sense of, of how this, how this is, was coming down the fucking, like where this came from, how it is being introduced to, to our, our governments, like municipal, provincial, federal, and, and who stands to benefit from this because we certainly know it’s not us. And we need to be radical.

We need to say, no, we need to stop. We need to stop doing this thing where we’re like, Oh, well maybe we’re wrong. Maybe, you know, it was actually kind of good in a few different ways.

We’re allowed to just say no to stuff. This is the thing we can say absolutely not to. And we all need to be doing it.

You can like, I just, I feel like I’m being the most annoying person in the world for the last few months being like, AI is bad. AI is bad. AI is bad.

AI is bad. But like, we all need to be doing this at all times. This is a massive problem.

This is a huge problem. This is, this is fascist overreach. This is like, this is fascism.

We are living in fascism. We are living through techno-fascism and we are like this increasing techno-feudalism that we are being subjected to. It is, it is a radical thing that is being done to us.

We need to be radical in return. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
There, I mean, there are things that we should really be concerned about, you know, in terms of not just, you know, the environment. Yes. One, number one, the environment, the things it’s going to do to our communities, all of that.

But we also need to be concerned about the things that it’s doing to our brains.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Because people who use, people are often offloading a lot of tasks and, and early think to AI.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
And that is making their brains not be able to do those tasks anymore.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. It’s atrophying and it’s also the work is, it is showing in the work, like the, and again, this, like the, on the note of optimism, there is this like gleeful celebration of, of, of being formulaic and of your work being formulaic. And we’re seeing that all over the, like, what is it?

The, like the tropes, what are the tropes in your work? That’s a huge thing in the world. Like what tropes does your book play with?

And I’m, you know, here’s my challenge to everybody. This is my thing. This is how I’m going to die lately.

Replace the word tropes with cliches, which is what they actually are. And I think you’ll feel a lot less proud of using that term. Right.

But that is a, it’s a huge thing right now. And I think part of that, like algorithmic thinking, what is going to get my work attention? What is, how is, what trends is it going to play into?

That is all a part of algorithmic thinking and algorithmic logic that has been foisted on us and using large language models to achieve that is literally algorithmic thinking.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
Like it is, it is literally trying to, to assimilate itself into what is the most effective way of doing that thing. What is the most popular way of doing that thing? And to so proudly take that on is the death of art.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. There, sorry, I keep getting caught up in what you’re saying and then I lose my train of thought.

That’s conversation. Yeah. The thing about all of this is we have this thing that’s being, that’s being forced on us and it is being forced on us.

There is a reason, there is a reason we have to be thinking critically, think critically. Every time you see a news article where some AI exec says something, they’re saying it for a reason. They’re saying it because they want you to, to, to put your hard earned money into their, their toilet basically.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Like they, they’re flushing it down the toilet and they need more of it. They’re saying it to keep the, the, the train moving.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. It’s all Aurelian, right? Like it’s just so dystopian.

[Phil Rickaby]
Also, we also have to consider when celebrities start talking about AI and the inevitability of it.

[Curtis Campbell]
Well, and like who’s, and, and who, who is bankrolling them?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
Well, that’s the question. Greased with this, this idea of like, and also this like, this like liberal thing of like, AI is actually feminist. AI is identity.

AI is actually, it’s about you, you. It’s about individuality and expressing yourself. Disgusting.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. I mean, whenever these things happen, we have to ask ourselves, why is this person suddenly saying this?

[Curtis Campbell]
Because they have, they literally have a, they literally have an investment in this thing.

[Phil Rickaby]
100%. 100%. If they’re saying that, assume they have an investment in it and they’re trying to protect that.

They’re not your friends. They’re a business. Exactly.

There, there are, there are other, the, there, the AI issue is one where, here’s another fallacy that, that, that I’ve seen people try to suggest is that people felt the same about email and the early internet and YouTube when it’s, when those things started, as they do about AI, they were, they were afraid of those too. To which, to which, as, as somebody, I’m an old man. I was there.

No, we weren’t.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
No, nobody was afraid of those. No, excited by those.

[Curtis Campbell]
No, we weren’t. And I, like, I am, you know, I’m just old enough to remember life pre-internet. So I was like there with a young spongy brain, absorbing all of it.

And like, no, we weren’t. We loved YouTube. It was great.

And also, again, were those tools, were those products, like the internet is a tool. AI is a product being forced on us that is going to have wreck absolute havoc on the environment. And I’m sorry, were those being used as a tool of fascist overreach?

Were those being used as a tool of actual fascism?

[Phil Rickaby]
No. And those, in those days, in the early days of the internet, it was like the whole, like, information wants to be free and all of this.

[Curtis Campbell]
And now it’s all proprietary. And now it’s all, it’s all hyper individualist. It’s all hyper individual.

The, the original internet was very like, let’s connect. Let’s actually, let’s, let’s all join together in a sense. And now AI is being sold to you as like, do you want to see that thing?

You should be able to see it.

[Phil Rickaby]
But do you know what the real issue, the real problem is? And the real difference is masturbatory. Yeah.

The real difference is that those early tools, nobody had to come up with reasons why you should use it. I know that you’d have to keep defending it. Right.

It was just like, you can use email. I can do, I can instantly send a message. I can look on the internet.

I can watch a video. There was no, like, no issue of like trying to figure what the thing can do because it was clear what it can do. The idea of these generative AIs, these large language models are technologies searching for a problem to solve.

Yeah. And because they haven’t been able to find one, they are reliant on the message of, oh, you got to get in there. You’ll be left behind.

[Curtis Campbell]
You’ll be left behind. And again, so many people have said this better than I, but like, great, leave me behind. Fuck this.

I don’t want it. I don’t want anything to do with anyone who has anything to do with this. But like, you know, we’re seeing, it was Mel Robbins did a big like, I realized that actually it was the men in my life who were all using AI.

And as a woman, I realized I didn’t want to be left behind. Like, they’re weaponizing, they’re weaponizing easy liberal talking points of like, you know, feminism, like individuality. You deserve to be a part of the conversation too.

And it’s like, well, it’s not a conversation because it’s certainly not a two way. It’s certainly not a back and forth. So no, it’s, it is like they, these are, these are companies that are, are sly and clever enough to, to worm their way into this, like the, the sort of divine, like the religion of the, of the individual that we all live in now and really hold themselves up as like the next prophet of like, hyper individualism.

And like you, you actually like staying up with the herd and being a leader and being a badass.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s the other thing that is, is, is, is really bad. The people keep trying to, to, to suggest it as a workshopping tool, as a, as a brainstorming tool, use it for this, use it for that. The issue is that it will never challenge you.

But brainstorm what like it brainstorm, what I use it, you listen, they, they’re encouraging people to, to offload their ideation into the AI and have it come up with the ideas for them.

[Curtis Campbell]
And the ideas, the ideas for the art, the ideas for the art.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. That’s, that’s, that’s one of the things that people are being.

[Curtis Campbell]
So you’re not an artist, you’re, you’re an artist, you’re not an artist, you’re a consumer of a product, right? Okay. So, okay.

So you, you’re a consumer of a product.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the, the thing about it is, is that these are tools that they’re…

[Curtis Campbell]
When you say tools, do you mean the people defending it or the…

[Phil Rickaby]
No, I mean, I mean the product.

[Curtis Campbell]
Okay. But the people are also tools. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. The, the, the, the thing that, that, that is happening is that this chat window is designed to keep you there as long as possible. Now you, you haven’t, you haven’t used these tools, but the thing, as somebody who’s had to use it occasionally for work, I could tell you that once you ask it a question, it will follow up with a suggested follow-up question every time.

Yeah. Would you like more? Would you like more on this?

Would you like more on this? It wants to keep you there as long as possible because it is learning from what you’re putting in, right? And, and adding it to its language models as well.

It will never tell you that anything that you say is a bad idea.

[Curtis Campbell]
Or that it doesn’t work. Yeah. Like, yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s sycophantic and we know this and like, um, yeah, I don’t know, honestly, Phil, the fact that people didn’t turn off it immediately when, um, people started killing themselves.

Oh, 100%. And going fully fucking insane because of AI. Like, um, yeah, I don’t know.

Like AI is being used to commit war crimes. It’s being used to, to, um, uh, target Palestinian children and murder them. It’s being used to target civilians, uh, and murder them.

It’s being used, uh, to like fucking bomb Iran to be like bomb schools in Iran. Like, I’m so fucking sorry. If that wasn’t a deal breaker for you, you are a bad person.

You are just a bad person. And I am going to attach morality to this as someone who’s always we put everything’s a fucking morality play now, but I am going to put morality to this. You are a bad person and you should feel ashamed and you should learn and grow and change.

And you should, you should, you should very much come out on the side of this is bad and we should not do it and we should not use it. We should not touch it. Do not feed the fucking blob.

No.

[Phil Rickaby]
Um, question for you, aside from the, the, the posters that we’ve seen in French, have you heard of other theatre festivals, theatre companies, uh, theatre artists who are, have been using AI in this way? I’m not going to ask you to name names.

[Curtis Campbell]
Um, yes, but it is speculative. At least I, I’ve heard of playwrights and directors and executive directors, artistic directors, et cetera, who use it as a part of their workflow, whatever the fuck that means, which like disgusting gross don’t do that. But, uh, no, nothing that I would stand behind proclaiming to the world.

[Phil Rickaby]
What now let’s go back to the beginning of the conversation. We, we had these, these, these groups that were using generative AI to create their posters, um, for their fringe festival shows at the Toronto fringe. And I, I know that I, as soon as I saw the posters, I didn’t go to those shows.

[Curtis Campbell]
No, they’re bad posters. Well, they’re bad posters, but yeah. And then, yeah, I did.

And I, and I also, I openly called like, I’m not going to their show and I don’t think you should either. We should not, we should not endorse this. We should, we should not turn a blind eye to this.

This should be punished. I just think that, that. You’re not owning the audience.

You know, I, I had some of these, I like, I also had something like, well, how, why should these artists be punished? And it’s like, well, you’re not owed an audience. You’re not like, you’re not, you’re that’s you’re not entitled to that.

And I am entitled to say, Hey, fuck this. Don’t go to that. I’m not.

[Phil Rickaby]
There is an interesting anecdote that I heard recently and it was around, um, uh, uh, a science fiction magazine early in the chat GPT days. And they had an open and like an open submission process. And the idea was that you got paid like four cents per word or something like that.

And somebody, a bunch of, of bros, AI, like four cents per word, man, if you wrote enough, you can just make a ton of money. And so they started like getting the chat GPT or whatever, to write these stories for them, submitting them overwhelming this organization. So they eventually had to shut their, their open door thing.

But the assumption was, Oh, I’m owed four cents per word. Yeah. Like they’re just going to give it to me.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Right. That is, this is something that I’m gaming the system because it’s just there. I, if I submit this, they’re going to pay me boom, done.

Like as though it’s the audience thing.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yes. So it has really, it is a, it is such a sinister thing. The, the way that, you know, it’s, it’s classic Mark Fisher, capitalist realism.

Like we, we simply cannot perceive of a, of another option than capitalism. And, you know, I always quote, um, Ursula Taylor who said, uh, you know, the, uh, the, the reach of capitalism seems unavoidable capitalism, anything, but capitalism seems inconceivable, you know, but you know, so did the divine right of Kings. It too was inescapable capitalism seems inescapable.

So to did the divine right of Kings diva really ate with that one. I’ve been, I’ve been main lighting Le Guin over the last year. It’s just like, it’s the only thing that makes me feel somewhat alive as art dies.

She really was a genius. The, we have taken on this idea that quantity does not matter or sorry, quality does not matter. Quantity matters.

We are living in a quantitative sort of dead zone where, you know, or qualitative dead zone where the only thing is quantity quality. What is that? So like I am owed as many people at my show.

Um, but it also, it is, that is so apparent in the, the, the, the use of AI posters for the fringe where it’s like, well, I have to maximize my time. I have to really optimize my budget and my time. And this is something I can do away with.

So I will, this is purely a numbers game. And I, as like a business need to be doing the most that I can to, to like streamline my process. And to that, I would say, no, this is not about a quantity.

This is about quality. And how dare you?

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. I, the thing that all of this tells me is that somebody didn’t consider the promotion of their show until the very last minute.

And I know that this is something that happens. The fringe has deadlines that they tell you about when you have to get your images in this sort of thing. So you know about those early, but people often ignore the promotion of their show until they’re faced with it.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
And I know this as somebody who promotes the fringe. I talk, I talk to people about fringe because every year I get a ton of emails a week before fringe asking to come on the podcast and talk about their show. Like it’s a weekly show.

Is that like that? That’s, I’ve already a week before fringe, two weeks before fringe, that’s already in the bag. Right.

But it, it tells me that people, yeah, it’s the thing that people don’t think about.

[Curtis Campbell]
And, uh, uh, and they don’t think about the fact that their marketing is a part of the storytelling.

[Phil Rickaby]
It’s the, it’s so important to think about that early.

[Curtis Campbell]
We like part of, again, we had no budget for gay for pay, but what I was able to do is make, make some really funny posts and some really funny videos that were like really communicating this, the tone and the style of the piece. And before we’d even open, I had people be like, Oh, I love your marketing. Like you’d see your social media stuff is really, it’s really like, it’s really funny.

And I was like, yeah, we don’t have a budget for like things to look good, but I can string together a bit of a joke. And that was enough.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, it is enough. And I think, you know, one of the things that I would, I, you know, people were asking, I would tell them if you’re in the fringe or you’re doing any kind of festival, even any kind of production, as soon as you have your cast, go do just do some pictures, do some pictures. You’re going to use those pictures.

Those pictures are going to become your, your, the basis for your posters. Just as soon as you were, as soon as you have a cast, start doing that early. Don’t wait until the end to start thinking about the marketing.

That’s how you lead to somebody thinking, Oh, Oh, Oh, I have to do something. I will use AI, which just turns everybody off.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. And like, it’s the, the deadlines are laid out in crystal clear, like color that you, you know exactly what these are. And again, I, I, the way to stand out is make a good show, hit up the fringe 10, get word of mouth going.

People want to find that show. People really want to find the, like the good stuff at fringe. It’s not hard to attract them.

You can do it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, the thing is that people are searching for it, right? People are searching this at fringe out of any other time of year, people are looking for a show. It’s comparatively easy to get people to come and see your show during fringe, especially if it’s good.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. Because you, you, you are already in the basket, right? Like they’re, they’re sifting through the basket, but you, you have the, the, the lovely little privilege of being inside that basket.

You know, something I always teach students, like writing students and performers is like the audience wants you to succeed. It sucks when you don’t, it sucks for them. It sucks for you.

We want this to work. And if you are in the fringe and you have a piece that does work, that can clearly communicate what it’s doing to its audience, you’re showing up to the 10, you are postcarding, you are engaging with people. You are actually meeting people face-to-face and pitching your show.

People show up.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah.

[Curtis Campbell]
They’re like, again, the fringe has been running since 1989. There are, there are many ways to be successful at it. And AI is not one.

[Phil Rickaby]
I, the thing that you said about, about audiences want you to succeed. I sometimes don’t think that everybody knows that that’s the audience’s intention. Every time I go to a show, I sit down and I’m like, I want this to be so good.

I want to leave here. I want to leave here knowing that I just saw magic at the fringe. Cause I have seen magic at the fringe and I have talked about it every day or thought about it every day since people want that.

[Curtis Campbell]
Like we, we do, we don’t, we don’t want to go there, which is part of why we are in this, this culture of hyperbole where everything gets a standing ovation and everything’s incredible and transcendent and like groundbreaking when like, no, it fucking isn’t. And like, I’m now the asshole who’s like, no, I’m not going to stand. I’m not going to do a standing ovation.

That means something. Like I know, but we are in this hyperbole culture because people do want it to be successful. So the next time you’re at a show and everyone leaps to their feet, even though like, no, that like, Oh, I can make that work for me too.

[Phil Rickaby]
You know, the funny thing is, is it’s never everybody leaping to their feet. No, in a, in a, in a, if it’s not like I’ve, I’ve been at a, like some legitimate, like heartfelt standing ovations. And those are everyone stands up, right?

The lights go down, the applause starts and everybody can no longer keep sitting. That’s what that feels like. Well, we usually see is the, the lights go down, people start to applaud the actors come out and their friends over there, they stand up and then those people go, Oh, I see those people standing up.

We’re supposed to stand up and then it goes, and then somebody’s like, I can’t see anymore. So I guess I have to stand up.

[Curtis Campbell]
I can’t be the one person. It’s all, it’s so hyperbolic and it’s, I find it really insulting to the artists. Like if this is going to be a thing, it should mean something.

They should know. They should know if they earned it. Um, yeah, so yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
And I think they know, I think actors know if you’ve ever been, if you’ve ever been a part of a show that’s gotten an actual standing ovation, you know, the difference, right?

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. I guess the difference is like when it’s my work and then when it’s me and it’s a standing ovation, that is because it is incredible and it earned it. Yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
I mean, that’s the thing that we want know, but that’s what I’m saying is like people don’t want a half-assed standing ovation.

[Curtis Campbell]
No. And, and people, yeah, it’s, I think there’s a defensiveness that people feel, especially if you’re a newcomer to the fringe where like there is a, yeah, there’s a defensiveness about like, well, I’m, I’m just like, my show’s good and I know it’s good and I’m not, and I’m not gonna let anyone get in the way of that. And I’m gonna do anything I can, everything I can to make this shine.

And it’s like, well, yeah, you can, you can do that. But a lot of what makes it shine and what draws people out is actually engaging with the community.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Yeah. I mean the community, but also like producing something like, I mean, you can, you can say that your show is great.

Yeah. Right. You can be like, my show is the best show in the world.

But, and you can, you can hold that in your, in your mind and in your heart at a certain point, an audience will make that determination.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah, exactly. And yeah, like make a, make a good show and don’t give me like, I made a good show and like, I’m just, I’m not a graphic designer and I, and I want the show to reach as many people as possible. Great.

Then if it’s a good show, it will.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Listen, if you, if, if all you could do on a poster is just some text, I would rather that.

[Curtis Campbell]
I would rather that. And that would stick out. I, I.

[Phil Rickaby]
Oh my God.

[Curtis Campbell]
I’ve been harping on that for years now. Like just text is going to be the next thing. But also like if your poster is crayon drawings on like a photocopy of a crayon drawing you did on lined paper, I am immediately drawn to that poster.

And I’m not being facetious. Like I don’t but yeah.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah. Do you think that we should be asking like all of our theatre companies what their AI policy is and if they don’t have one starting to demand it? Yes.

Yes.

[Curtis Campbell]
I do. Yeah. Yeah.

That is what we need to do. Do you want to, do you want to Phil, do you want to, do you and I get the ball rolling on that? Sure.

Yeah. Great. Let’s do it.

[Phil Rickaby]
I want to, I want to hear from every theatre company and I want to, I want to know what their what their AI policy is. How are you, where do they, where do they allow it and where do they disallow it if, and if they don’t have one, are they in the process of writing one?

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. Yeah. I completely agree.

[Phil Rickaby]
And I think other people should do the same.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah, I agree. I mean, we as a, as a community, we could, we could decide to do that and, and we should, do you want to do that? Yeah.

Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Let’s do it. Yeah. Curtis, this is such a, I mean, this, this, this conversation I think is, is one that I hope we don’t ever have to revisit it because I hope the whole thing crashes down.

Yeah. But I think we are going to continue to see fallacious and disingenuous arguments and justifications for using AI. And I think that we all as a community need to hold our skepticism and push back on all of those.

[Curtis Campbell]
Push back on it. Yeah. My, my, my partner brought up a really great point about all of this, which, you know, we get mired in the, the discourse every morning.

I feel like every morning I can’t, I can’t talk about AI right now. Okay. I can’t do it right now.

I, I, today’s going to be a good day, but he was like, you know, all of the, all of the points aside and all of the truths of that, I think what we need to do is just say like, you’re a fucking loser. Fuck AI. No, like I don’t, I don’t care what, I don’t care your reasoning.

You’re a fucking loser. And that sucks. And people are going to hate that.

And you’re going to stop doing it because bullying works and we need to bring back just a scooch of bullying.

[Phil Rickaby]
Do you know, one of the things I love about being on threads and threads is owned by Mark Zuckerberg. It’s a meta product and all of this sort of thing. My favorite Instagram, Twitter, right?

It’s, it’s like Instagram, Twitter. Yeah. Okay.

But the thing that I like about it is that every time somebody is like, here’s my AI thing is just a litany of thousands of people going, this is garbage. You fucking suck. It’s my favorite thing is like, and people will be like, here’s this video I used to prompt.

It took $0 to make. And everybody’s just like, it’s shit. And that is the one thing that, that keeps me on that godforsaken meta product is the fact that everybody hates the AI.

[Curtis Campbell]
Yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, let’s, let’s, let’s start demanding transparency from, from our theatre administrators and our theatre, um, you know, uh, artistic leadership.

Um, and let’s start telling people to their face that their AI thing is stupid and bad and they should not do it.

[Phil Rickaby]
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Oh, that’s a great final thought, Curtis.

Thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate the time. I really appreciate the conversation.

I think it’s an important one. Thank you.

[Curtis Campbell]
I had a good time.

[Phil Rickaby]
Thanks. Thank you for listening to this week’s episode of Stageworthy. Before I get into who my guest is next week, let me first tell you about my Patreon because I cannot do this show without the people who’ve chosen to back me on Patreon.

Even though this show is given to you for free, there are costs involved with making the show. It costs money to host all of the audio files so they could be distributed to all of the podcast listening places. Editing software costs money.

Transcripts cost money. Image creation software costs money. And that doesn’t even account for the work of making this show.

Every episode is the result of hours of work. And since I don’t have sponsors or advertising, the only way I can keep this show going is because of the patrons who are backing me on Patreon. But the fact that there are people who believe in this show enough to back me on Patreon is so gratifying.

It tells me that I am doing something right. But I still need your help. With the help of my patrons, I’m able to cover most of the costs associated with creating this show, but there’s still a bit of a shortfall and those hours of work that go into putting this show together aren’t covered at all.

If you want to be one of the people that helps me to make this show, please go to patreon.com/stageworthy and become a patron. Patrons get early access to episodes, we’ll have some conversations about things that are going on in the theatre world and more people who join the Patreon, the more I will ultimately be able to offer to my patrons. And if you are someone who doesn’t want to or can’t commit to an ongoing contribution, but you still want to help, you can leave a one time contribution at ko-fi.com/stageworthy you can find that link in the show notes as well. I will be grateful for anything that you can give. My guest next week is Jacklyn Francis. Jacklyn is a longtime member of the Stratford Festival Company and has appeared on stages across Canada and on some of your favorite TV shows.

At the time we recorded this, Jacklyn had just finished an acclaimed run of Sexy Laundry at the Drayton Festival Theatre. So tune in next week for that conversation.