Could AI-Written Musicals Ever Come To Broadway?

Imagine a Broadway where computer-generated musicals, powered by cutting-edge artificial intelligence technology, take center stage. No more waiting for years for a new hit musical to be written and produced, no more limitations on special effects, and no more casting restrictions. This may sound like science fiction, but the reality is that AI is rapidly advancing and has the potential to completely revolutionize the way Broadway musicals are created, produced and experienced. From AI-generated original scores to virtual reality sets, the future of Broadway could be unlike anything we've ever seen before.

That introduction was, as is the latest trend, written by Open AI's ChatGPT. While it's hard to fathom a world where Broadway's practical effects are created by artifician intelligence, AI is already being used to create children's books, could soon revolutionize movies, and create new music in the style of other artists.

We asked ChatGPT to create "an idea for an all new, original Broadway musical" to see what it might come up with - twice. The first result was a musical titled Codebreakers, with a full outline including suggested musical numbers. ChatGPT, without credit, appeared to have been inspired by a 2011 Channel 4 documentary with the same title.

We gave it one more try with the same prompt, and out came the musical titled 'Eco Heroes.'

"Eco Heroes" is a musical adventure that follows a group of teenage friends as they discover their power to save the planet and become unlikely eco-activists. The musical is set in a near future where climate change has reached a critical point, and the government is not doing enough to address the issue. The story centers around a group of high school friends who stumble upon a mysterious and ancient artifact that gives them special abilities to control and harness the power of the natural elements.

As the friends learn to control their powers, they also begin to uncover a sinister plot by a wealthy corporation to exploit the planet's resources and accelerate the destruction of the environment. With the help of a wise and experienced mentor, the friends must band together to use their powers to stop the corporation and save the planet. The musical is filled with catchy and upbeat songs, thrilling action scenes, and a message of hope and empowerment. The musical numbers include:

ChatGPT also suggested a number of musical moments in the show:

-"Eco Heroes" an opening number that sets the scene and introduces the characters

-"Nature's Fury" a song that showcases the characters learning to control the elements

-"Save the World" a song that inspires the audience to take action to save the planet

-"The Power of Friendship" a song that highlights the importance of teamwork and unity

-"A Better Future" a closing number that celebrates the characters' victory and the hope for a better future for the planet.

While this is certainly an overly-simplictic outline of a potential idea for a musical, which again appeared to have been inspired by other content that exists online, many artists are already using AI to create new art or enhance their creative pursuits.

One TikTok user who goes by Mathue, demonstared ChatGPT's lyrical abilities by creating a song about AI taking over the world.

OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, already have music creating AI technology, which can create songs in a number of styles based on prompts submitted by a user.

In this example, the user asked 'MuseNet' to create a song inspired by Bon Jovi and Chopin. The results are fairly impressive considering no one actually created the work, but fairly unimpressive if evaluated as a standalone piece of art.

It must be considered that this technology is currently in its infancy, with new learning models and updates being released at regular intervals. Just yesterday, Microsoft announced a multibillion-dollar investment into OpenAI - which will certainly lead to the acceleration of the improvement of these technolgies.

Then there are also concerns about the ethics of artificial intelligence. Just recently major publisher CNET was caught posting AI-written articles which contained numerous errors and were substantially plagerized. In our tests with ChatGPT to create 'original musicals' - most appeared to be derrivitive of another commercially produced work.

There's also the question about the original data set the machine model is trained on. If we were to ingest the entire works of Stephen Sondheim into a machine learning system and have it create a new musical in the style of Sondheim, would that be ethical? Would the original author or their estate be entitled to compensation?

Copyright law as it currently stands has yet to be tested by stable diffusion, a deep learning text to image model, but lawsuits by those whose work was used to train the machines are already being filed in numerous countries.

With today's abilities, AI is more likely to be 'helpful' on your college essays than creating complete musicals ready for Broadway - but with the technology constantly evolving and improving, aritsts of all mediums, including theater, will have to reckon with how we adapt as we enter a more mature internet age.