{"id":588124,"date":"2026-04-16T17:25:29","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:25:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588124\/"},"modified":"2026-04-16T17:25:29","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T17:25:29","slug":"usc-is-launching-an-ai-institute-for-actors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/588124\/","title":{"rendered":"USC Is Launching an ‘AI Institute for Actors"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tFor most of its short modern existence, AI<\/a> has been seen as an enemy of actors \u2014 a dinger of their craft if not swiper of their jobs \u2014 as synthetic media is prompted instead of performed.<\/p>\n

USC wants to switch all that up.<\/p>\n

The university\u2019s School of Dramatic Arts has just launched an\u00a0\u201cInstitute For Actor-Driven Innovation\u201d\u00a0that administrators hope will give performers a chance to benefit from, instead of lose to, the rise of artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

\u201cUp until now actors have really been on the wrong end of these changes,\u201d\u00a0Emily Roxworthy, dean of the\u00a0USC\u00a0School of Dramatic Arts, tells The Hollywood Reporter in an interview. \u201cWe want to do something about that.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the outset the institute will focus just on helping students understand the rudiments of AI. USC will work with Adobe on educational events like one scheduled for later this month (the company is a sponsor of the institute) as well as build lab spaces and \u201cstudent think tanks where they can be given equipment and guidance,\u201d according to Roxworthy. Eventually, though, AI will be presented as something acting students could use to augment their craft and careers.<\/p>\n

Roxworthy envisions a host of use cases, from reading with legendary scene partners (resurrected Olivier, anyone?), to getting advice on setting up a production company, to receiving notes from A-listers who would not otherwise be available, to even having AI serve as a de facto representation for the many students not yet signed, in a kind of twist on the term AI agent.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey can have somebody \u2014 or something, I suppose \u2014 that is combing breakdowns for them and really looking out for them in a way that representatives would,\u201d Roxworthy says. Actors who need to know how to control their likeness might also be part of a joint class with the law school. (Roxworthy called the institute \u201cadmittedly a really ambitious undertaking.\u201d)<\/p>\n

The institute will be run day-to-day by Tomm Polos, who currently serves as a chair at USC in \u201ccreator arts,\u201d which explores the influencer economy from an academic standpoint, and also moonlights as the hype man for the Dodgers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cActors have always been master navigators of uncertainty, ambiguity, and the full range of human experience,\u201d Polos said in a statement. \u201cIn a world increasingly shaped by AI, those capacities are not relics of the past; they are the most vital competencies of the future.\u00a0USC-IAI is here to put those competencies to work,\u201d he said, using the institute\u2019s acronym.<\/p>\n

\n\tRoxworthy is no stranger to tech in the arts. The\u00a0developer of a diversity-training arts program called\u00a0Workplace Interactive Theatre, she also created an educational video game prototype which puts players in a WWII-era Japanese-American internment camp.<\/p>\n

USC\u2019s institute again underscores the slippery \u2014 at times dual \u2014 nature of AI in creative realms. While many artists have expressed skepticism on both labor and craft grounds, those in charge of creative organizations have tended to welcome the tech, for reasons of either optics or belief.<\/p>\n

The biggest tech-entertainment companies like Netflix and Amazon are making tools available to their filmmakers. And now academic institutions re increasingly becoming boosters too. Last week NYU\u2019s own Tisch School of the Arts said it had made a deal<\/a> with Runway AI to give away the video-generation company\u2019s tools to its students.<\/p>\n

Now USC \u2014 a leading arts schools on the other coast \u2014 is following suit in its own way.<\/p>\n

What fruits the initiative will bear remain to be seen. It could yield new kinds of creativity and a generation trained as never before. Or it could water down skills before students even have a chance to practice them in the real world.<\/p>\n

Roxworthy, for her part, said she sees such training as only beneficial for when Trojans graduate into the industry.\u00a0\u201cWe can make a creative space that allows the acting students and other artists to engage with AI and other new technologies in a way that\u2019s thoughtful and on their own terms,\u201d\u00a0she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cRight now we have a lot of fear-based responses to AI, and for good reason,\u201d\u00a0the dean added. \u201cWe\u2019re not here to proselytize and\u00a0say it\u2019s something students should adopt. But they should understand it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For most of its short modern existence, AI has been seen as an enemy of actors \u2014 a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":588125,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[182,181,507,257114,74],"class_list":["post-588124","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-drama-schools","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588124","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=588124"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/588124\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/588125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=588124"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=588124"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=588124"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}