Informed Consent

Ensuring informed consent of participants whose data is used for creative AI tools.

Dance is Mila's life. As a third-year college student, she has been looking for ways to create more innovative projects that allow her to create choreography in a new way. For this, she has turned to AI. She has been eager to push the boundaries of Dance, so she uses a motion capture technology that records her every movement and then sends the data to an AI system that turns each of those moves into a new sequence. Her classmates are impressed that these new sequences seem to capture human emotion along with precise steps.

Mila soon encountered a complex issue many people in creative fields face. When she shared her performance online, another dancer contacted her and highlighted that some of the new dance moves were the same as those she had created years before. This made her consider issues around consent that Mila had not yet considered.

Mila reached out to the developers of the AI choreography tool. They were open about their data collection methods and training process, and they explained that their AI was trained on a vast dataset of publicly available dance videos. However, they hadn't sought explicit permission from the dancers featured in those videos. The developers pointed out that this approach is similar to human dancers learning from others by watching dances and gaining inspiration. They also acknowledged that they were working on developing a way for dancers to opt out of having their work used in AI training.

Mila then conducted a small survey among her fellow dance students and local professional dancers. She asked them to weigh in on whether they would be willing to contribute their work to AI training datasets if asked. They provided a range of responses: some saw it as a form of artistic legacy and seemed excited about the possibility of their moves influencing AI-generated choreography. In contrast, others were concerned that they would lose control over their creative work and thought this would lead to AI replicating and building on their style without giving them credit. A few dancers proposed a system where dancers could opt in to license their dance moves and earn royalties.

Her story underscores the ethical issues that lie at the intersection of creativity and artificial intelligence. The AI tool had been fed an enormous amount of online content, including the works of other artists who had not consented to this. This elevates the issue of intellectual property rights at a time when AI has created artwork in every discipline and when it becomes difficult to see the difference between inspiration and infringement.

This became an important moment of learning for Mila. She began researching AI-generated copyright laws and learned the importance of ensuring that companies get consent from creators before their AI systems generate new works.

What do you think?


Questions for Discussion

  • What are the drawbacks and benefits of using AI to generate dance choreography?
  • How does the issue of consent factor into AI systems use publicly available online content?
  • Why is it important to have informed consent when using AI tools that draw on public or personal data?
  • How can designers, artists, and writers obtain proper consent and participation from other creators when using AI-generated content?
  • How could dance generated by AI impact human emotion and expression in performance art?
  • What, if any, future implications could there be for dance and other performance arts with the rise of AI?
  • Should dance students learn new skills or gain new knowledge to ensure they address the associated ethical concerns?
  • Will the future of performing arts look very different due to AI?

List of resources that, in part, focus on this topic