London's Royal Opera House launches RBO/SHIFT: artists in dialogue with AI instead of apocalyptic rhetoric

Artists and cultural figures around the world call AI a threat to civilization. The Royal Opera House in London responds differently: the RBO/SHIFT festival offers to honestly explore the technology, closing our eyes neither to risks nor to possibilities.

Fear as First Response

In the artistic community, anxiety about artificial intelligence hasn't gone away — and remains entirely real. Leading critics and commentators speak of AI in apocalyptic terms: "it will destroy art," "it is evil," "it is the devil." The language of catastrophe has become the norm of cultural discourse about AI.

There is an explanation for this. Machine learning developed rapidly and outside public control. The technology was promoted by large corporations interested primarily in profit, not in cultural dialogue.

New tools appeared on the market so quickly that artists had no opportunity to either make sense of what was happening or influence the direction of this development. Fear, distrust, and a sense of impending catastrophe — a natural response to an opaque process to which they were not invited. At the same time, the capabilities of AI continue to expand exponentially: the technology penetrates every aspect of human activity — from medicine and law to music and visual art.

The question is no longer whether AI will come to culture — it is already here. The question is who will determine the conditions of this meeting.

What is the RBO/SHIFT Festival?

RBO/SHIFT — a festival to be held at the Royal Opera House in London — sets itself a non-trivial task: not to pass judgment on the technology or to glorify it, but to create a space for serious and honest conversation about where we are today and where we are heading. Participants invited include:

• artists and performers already working with AI tools
• directors and choreographers exploring new formats
• educators and thinkers shaping the next generation
• the general public — as an equal participant in dialogue, not a passive spectator

The organizers are convinced: machine learning represents too significant a shift in society and in art to leave its definition to developers and investors alone. Artists — historically humanity's best storytellers — should enter this process and help set its direction. Not because AI is safe, but because space for dialogue is more important than silence.

Opera and Technology: Four Centuries of Experience

It is symbolic that the opera house itself becomes the center of this conversation. A genre that emerged in the late sixteenth century has repeatedly faced "fatal" technological changes: mechanical stage, electric lighting, sound recording, video projection. Each of these transitions was accompanied by skeptics who predicted the death of the living tradition. Opera survived them all.

"I am convinced that one can look simultaneously forward and backward in this rapidly changing landscape," writes

Netia Jones, director and curator of the festival.

AI is not the first technology to provoke existential fear in the creative community. Photography was supposed to kill painting. Cinema — to kill theater. Television — to kill cinema. None of these predictions came true in the form in which they were uttered. Culture knows how to adapt and reinterpret tools — but for this, artists must be in the room, not behind the door.

What This Means

The RBO/SHIFT festival is a signal of an important shift in the position of the cultural community: instead of apocalypse — exploration, instead of closed doors — critical dialogue. If artists and technologists learn to speak honestly and as equals, AI will have a chance to become a tool in the hands of the creator, rather than a threat to the very existence of art.