The New Imperial Spectacle

On Arizona Opera's generative AI “Aida”

In a third-season episode of Killing Eve, the show’s title character — an MI6 agent tangled in a political intrigue that has earned her a near-fatal gunshot wound and killed several of her close friends and colleagues — is counseled by a new-to-the-game colleague, Mo. “You really should have some kind of protection,” he tells her. She quietly scoffs.

“Do you have any idea what happens to people who are protected by MI6?”

“What?”

Eve walks away, then turns around for a moment, laughing: “It’s not good!”

I love this scene for its messiness and its economy. Eve could have given Mo a full speech. Conversely, she could have said nothing at all. Instead, she delivers three perfect words. As a writer, I know I should be concerned about how automation may make my job redundant, but when I plugged Eve’s same question into ChatGPT, I received a 300-word response that didn’t say much.

It was nice to be reminded of this amid so much of opera falling to the Enshittocene, a phenomenon my friend and coll…