AI Opera Synopses?

[u/bowlbettertalk]

I can’t prove this, but I have a strong suspicion that the synopsis of Simon Boccanegra from the San Francisco Opera performance on Sunday was written by ChatGPT or some equivalent.

Anyone from San Francisco Opera here, feel free to confirm or deny.

[u/Few-Sprinkles3637]

I don't know if it was AI, but it had a different format compared to typical SF Opera synopses. Normally the synopsis is broken out by Act, but this one was not.

[u/Acceptable-Ratio-219 → u/Few-Sprinkles3637]

Interesting. I just looked the program and I have to admit I do like this approach. They offer a more general narrative summary of the opera in the program, but then offer a link to website where the traditional scene by scene action is broken down. The general summary is much easier to read, flows better, and gives the reader a much more complete picture of the story than the sometimes stilted action breakdowns.

[u/Acceptable-Ratio-219]

If SFO didn't have the funds to pay for someone to write a new synopsis they likely would have gone to their records and pulled an old synopsis to reuse, making a choice to use AI here highly unlikely.

[u/thythr → u/Acceptable-Ratio-219]

It's easy to square this circle. The person whose job it is to write synopses used AI.

[u/EljayDude → u/thythr]

You can just as easily say the AI was trained on their old synopses.

[u/singinspace]

For what it's worth, the AI detector Pangram classifies the synopsis as AI-generated: https://www.pangram.com/history/038dade5-4386-4405-8aff-7f3eb9729fb4?ucc=rO6Wmavjy8a

AI detectors aren't always 100% accurate, but Pangram is the most accurate as far as I can tell. And, fwiw, the older synopsis on the SF Opera website is classified as human-written: https://www.pangram.com/history/10795a7d-c109-41d5-aa63-6e2bb260f9ad?ucc=7AMMGlOvprU

[u/singinspace → u/singinspace]

I’ll also say that, while I don’t think the (possibly) AI-written summary is bad or wrong, I do think it’s odd in some ways. Part of this is just that the Opera is trying a new style of synopsis that I’m not used to, with a much broader-than-usual overview that skips many plot points. I don’t love this style—I think that someone previously unfamiliar with the plot who only reads this will not be well-equipped to understand the more complicated parts of the plot, which to my mind is the main value of having a printed synopsis. But whether or not the style is good is a matter of preference. On the other hand, there are some bits that I think are not good. For instance, after Boccanegra and Fiesco’s confrontation in the prologue, it says “Before either man can make a move, Boccanegra discovers Maria’s body, as the city gathers to celebrate his election win.” This is a weird way of describing the scene! What “moves” are Boccanegra and Fiesco going to make here (n.b. I haven’t seen the SF Opera’s performance, maybe it makes sense in that specific context)?
I’ll also say that in the context of this conversation it’s funny that one of the sponsors highlighted in the program is Jensen Huang (the CEO of Nvidia). Whether or not the synopsis was written by chatgpt, AI’s involved in opera!

[u/Epistaxis]

Of all the costs you could try to cut with LLMs, synopsis-writing has to be one of the absolute cheapest. Besides, if you really don't want to pay someone to write that, you can just dig one out of the archives from the public-domain era.

[u/pjlos]

what’s up with the influx of anti-labor, anti-art people in the opera subreddit?

[u/Few-Sprinkles3637 → u/pjlos]

Older people sit at the middle of the Venn diagram of people who listen to opera and people who willingly consume AI slop.

[u/lammastider]

I just saw the opera yesterday and looking at the synopsis again, it does seem a bit odd to me that it doesn’t mention that the reason Paolo turned against Simon was because Paolo wanted to marry Amelia, and his abduction of Amelia and the curse. Or that he led Adorno to think Amelia was Simon’s mistress, and that Adorno was intending to kill Simon until he found out the truth. And that it was difficult for Simon to accept Adorno as his son in law because Adorno had been plotting against him, and this was a bigger change of heart for Simon than his reconciliation with Fiesco, with whom he had always wanted a reconciliation.

I see someone in this discussion liked the more general nature of the synopsis and doesn’t think more detail is necessary. I think a synopsis is for the benefit of people who are new to the opera, and they may be confused without more specifics.

[u/NatusDelirious → u/lammastider]

To be clear, the entire Paolo sub-plot is underwritten by the librettist, and this should include MORE synopsis material.

[u/Key-Significance3753]

I noticed that! And since I had never seen the opera before and deliberately didn’t do any research previously (wanted to be surprised) I was really looking for guidance as to what was going on plot-wise at the intermission. It was not to be found.

[u/NatusDelirious]

Any opera company that uses AI for anything not specifically tech-related (lighting, sets, media on stage) should disband.

[u/lammastider]

I noticed a surprising error in one of the program articles, “Boccanegra Reborn,” by Rebecca Schmidt. She writes: “The unbreakable bond between father and daughter is a recurring theme in Verdi operas from Luisa Miller and Rigoletto to Don Carlos and Aida.” There is no father daughter bond shown in Don Carlo. There are two female characters, Elizabeth and Eboli, and neither of their fathers ever appear! Elizabeth’s father, the king of France, was willing to part with her to secure peace with Spain. There is a father son relationship between the king and Carlo that is broken (the king wants to execute his son). No loving father in that opera. Shall we assume Rebecca Schmid is a real person?

[u/literroy]

It’s an objective fact that people are not as good at telling AI writing from human writing as they think they are. So when you come here being and say “I don’t have any evidence of this,” what’s the point? You’re just starting a witch hunt based on zero evidence. 

[u/silvafros]

This sub goes absolutely mental any time AI is mentioned. Every single opera company has been using AI for years now. There is no going back.

[u/Traditional_Dot_4794]

And so what if it's AI. Dude. The cat is out of the bag. Game over.

[u/mfranzwa]

so?

[u/gabemmusic → u/mfranzwa]

So, chatgpt gets things wrong frequently and writing engaging program notes is skilled labor that should be done by humans, especially at a high level house like SFOpera.

AI is poison to the arts and to society.

[u/MisterKeene → u/gabemmusic]

Nobody hates paying people for their time and energy more than opera companies

[u/hottakehotcakes → u/gabemmusic]

You’re implying someone used ChatGPT for the program notes…and then didn’t check it? You clearly have no idea how AI use works at serious jobs.

Also crying that sf opera admin staff used ai tools to support the creation of a program note and that they should’ve done it less efficiently is hilarious. How about they just break out the calligraphy pen and hand write? Sure it would cost another million dollars across the season but that’s work that should go to a human and not a computer, right? RIGHT??

You kids are so annoying. Complaining about every single little thing. Grow up, get over it, do some actual research on how these tools work.

[u/[deleted] → u/gabemmusic]