Aaron Alphonso on Why the Sydney Opera House Needs to Sort its Data Hygiene Before AI Can Sing

Before the iconic Sydney Opera House gets serious about AI, the organisation needs to work on its internal data hygiene.

“We haven’t started using AI yet, we’re playing with use cases”, the organisation’s Chief Technology Officer, Aaron Alphonso tells ADAPT.

“The main challenge is that we are a public organisation that deals with very precious public data that we have collected over the years through our subscriptions and memberships. Trust in our data is paramount; we need to make sure that we are very careful with what we do in terms of large language models and AI.”

An AI solution could improve the efficiency of internal staff who are completing repetitive, manual tasks each day, he says. For example, at the conclusion of every show, production teams and stage managers compile “minute-by-minute’ reports to record everything that occurred.

“If you are watching Phantom of the Opera and the chandelier fails…