Disclaimer: All immersive media is manipulated, the image is not real, it’s a manufactured world.
AI offers endless opportunities for creatives, yet this powerful tool also introduces significant dangers. To navigate this evolving landscape responsibly, creatives should embrace transparency, openly disclosing their use of AI and their corresponding intentions.
Dogma.AI is not a universal manifesto for all immersive or AI powered creative work. It is a specific set of principles for a particular kind of production, one that seeks to preserve the rawness, integrity, and emotional honesty of storytelling in the spirit of Dogma 95. This framework is intended for creators who deliberately choose constraints as a tool for authenticity in a time of limitless technological possibilities.This manifesto aims to serve as both an example and a blueprint for others in the creative community, fostering a dialogue around ethical AI integration and authentic artistic expression.
In an era where artificial intelligence frequently blurs the boundaries between authentic human creativity and synthetic creation, Dogma.AI stands as a champion for transparency, emotional resonance, and ethical storytelling. Today, the pervasive use of AI often obscures the roles of humans and machines, leaving audiences unclear about who or what truly created the work they experience. Dogma.AI directly addresses this by clearly defining and openly crediting all creative processes and tools used, ensuring the human contribution remains central and transparent.
We believe advanced digital tools, including Velox, ComfyUI, generative AI, Unreal Engine, Unity, Houdini, Blender, Adobe Creative Suite, DaVinci Resolve, TouchDesigner, and Cinema 4D, should amplify and celebrate human creativity, never overshadow or replace it. Each step of the creative workflow must clearly distinguish human generated elements from AI generated or assisted contributions, offering complete transparency to audiences regarding how content is produced.
Everything should feel Natural, but that doesn’t mean Realistic, by Natural we mean that they should exist in the world that we are creating and that it should fit in the world being created.
Principles of the Digital Vow:
- Real is the Only Way: All visuals must originate from reality based sources, including live action footage, photographs, volumetric capture, photogrammetry, or LiDAR scans. Fully synthetic visual content is prohibited.
- AI Tools as a Creative Partner: AI enhances and reinterprets human content; it doesn’t replace genuine human stories.
- Respecting Time and Place: Stories should accurately reflect real locations and time periods. AI-generated environmental modifications must not compromise the authentic character or context of locations.
- Keeping it Real: Imperfections inherent in captured content should be preserved. AI touch-ups should maintain or convincingly recreate these natural imperfections.
- The Human Touch: AI might offer creative suggestions, but the heart of the story always comes from human creators.
- Transparent AI Usage: Makers must explicitly disclose the use and scope of generative AI tools in the filmmaking process.
- Staying Spontaneous: The use of technologies like Velox, ComfyUI, Unreal Engine, Unity, TouchDesigner, and similar tools for real-time or near-real-time generation and editing, ensure spontaneity and authentic creative expression.
- Connecting with the Audience: Immersive technologies (VR, AR, XR) must directly involve the audience physically, emotionally, or intellectually through clear and measurable interaction, participation, or response. Merely viewing or passive consumption is insufficient.
- Giving Credit: All creative contributions need to be clearly attributed, with clear distinctions between human and AI work.
- Conscious Storytelling: Storytelling must explicitly address identifiable social, ethical, or personal issues, offering clear paths or practical reflections that can stimulate real world change or measurable shifts in audience perception or behavior.
Music and Sound
- Real-World Sounds: The main soundscapes need to come from live audio recordings captured on location.
- AI-Generated Music Rules: AI-generated music is okay, but it has to:
- Be based on or inspired by real recordings, live performances, or real-world sounds, for which the rights are owned.
- Support the story’s emotional truth without overpowering live-recorded sound.
- Feeling is Key: The emotional truth conveyed by the music and sound design is paramount. AI should serve this emotional truth, adding depth to the story and making it more relatable to the audience, not distracting with overly synthetic sounds.
- Transparent Teamwork: Be upfront about AI’s role in the music. The audience needs to know how much was generated by AI versus human composition.
- Imperfections in Sound: Natural imperfections in audio recordings and AI-enhanced music should be preserved. Raw, organic textures and sonic irregularities reflect real human experience and the environment.
Visuals
- Authentic Visuals: All visuals must come from real world sources and be enhanced respectfully. AI should make things look more authentic, not less.
- Open About Visual Changes: Any AI based visual enhancements or changes need to be clearly disclosed.
- Imperfect is Perfect: Natural visual imperfections need to be kept. AI shouldn’t be used to overly correct or idealize the image.
- Emotionally True Visuals: AI driven visual enhancements have to support the story and feel authentic, helping to immerse the viewer without going over the top.
Acting and Performance
- Real Performances: Performances need to come from real actors, using traditional filming, volumetric or motion capture. AI can amplify real emotions but should never replace human actors.
- Truth in Performance: AI has to respect and enhance the actor’s emotional truth and performance, never covering up genuine human emotion.
- Perfect Imperfections: Real human imperfections and emotional nuances are what make a performance genuine. AI enhancements should respect and reflect this emotional vulnerability and realism.
- AI-Generated Character Integrity: If we use fully AI-generated characters, we must be transparent about their synthetic origin. Their performances must feel believable and emotionally resonate with the audience. They also need to make sense within the story and not trick the audience into thinking they are real human performers.
Scriptwriting and Story Development
- Human Storytelling: Scripts and story development are driven by human insight, emotion, and experience. AI tools can help explore creative ideas but shouldn’t overshadow the human creative voice.
- Transparent Scripting: Be open about any AI-generated or AI-influenced content in scripts.
- Story Integrity: AI-generated narrative suggestions have to line up with real human experiences and emotions, supporting the integrity and coherence of the story.
Editing and Post-Production
- Ethical Editing: AI-assisted editing needs to maintain the story’s coherence and emotional authenticity, avoiding overly synthetic or manipulative editing choices.
- Transparency in Editing: Disclose the extent to which AI tools are used in post-production editing.
Immersive Performance and Audience Interaction
- Authentic Immersion: Immersive performance (AR/VR/XR) must authentically reflect real-world scenarios, enhancing empathy and emotional connection without excessive artificial augmentation.
- Transparency in Immersive Interaction: Clearly disclose how immersive experiences integrate AI-driven interactivity and narrative engagement.
Distribution and Audience Engagement:
- Ethical Distribution Practices: Communicate honestly about using AI for distribution, targeting, and recommendations, while respecting the audience’s choices and privacy.
Ethical Considerations
- Privacy and Consent: Respect privacy, get informed consent, and protect personal data and information during filming, processing, and distribution.
Dogma.AI embraces responsible, transparent, and ethical integration of advanced generative and immersive technologies, reaffirming our commitment to authentic, emotionally resonant storytelling and societal consciousness towards protopian futures.
It is important that the creators credit the AI performances and tools used in the various parts of the process, this will not be monitored, but built on a trust system.
Authors: Tupac Martir, SATORE
