At the recently held Fourth International Forum on Performing Arts Education, director Xu Zheng talked about his first encounter with AI-generated content. He said that when he first came across an AI face-swap performance clip made with his own face, he was completely stunned—the "Xu Zheng" on screen moved and acted convincingly, which he called a total surprise. This event, which was supposed to discuss performing arts education, saw its topic inevitably drift toward "Will actors be replaced?" after AI entered the picture.
What really sparked discussion was Xu Zheng's next judgment: after watching those AI face-swap clips, he felt their level of completion was already quite high, while many real actors who have just entered the profession currently deliver performances that are even inferior to AI-generated content. These remarks pulled the debate over "Will AI take actors' jobs?" back from panic to ability itself—the technical barrier is dropping at an extremely fast pace, and some industry professionals have already tried replacing real people with AI to cut production costs, bringing the industry's anxiety into the open.
In the face of this impact, the Shanghai Theatre Academy took the lead in issuing an industry initiative, setting the core principle of "human performance as the foundation and AI as a supplement." The initiative calls on the entire industry to rebuild the teaching ecosystem for theater, film, and television performance, anchor the focus of education on honing real actors' acting skills, and build a moat that algorithms cannot take away. After all, an actor's emotional empathy shaped by unique life experience and the vivid details that emerge in the moment are values that cold models will never be able to fully replicate, and they are also the reason human performance remains irreplaceable in the AI era.
