Theatrical AI Agency Index (TAAI) Dataset: YouTube Audience Discourse on AI as Creative Agent in Theatre and Performance (n=2,816, April 2026)

This dataset contains 2,816 YouTube comments collected viathe YouTube Data API v3 (April 2026) across five theatre-specific discourse domains targeting naturalistic audienceresponses to AI as a creative agent in live performance: (1) AI written play theatre performance audience reaction 2025(2) artificial intelligence actor robot performance stage 2025(3) AI generated theatre script play human creativity 2025(4) can AI replace human actors theatre performance debate 2025(5) AI theatre performance real or fake authentic art 2025 The corpus is the primary empirical dataset for theTheatrical AI Agency Index (TAAI) — the first computationalmetric measuring whether theatre audiences accept or refuseAI as a legitimate creative agent in live performance,providing audience-reception data to complement practitioner-focused AI theatre research. TAAI = Theatrical Agency Acceptance / (TAA + Agency Refusal)1.0 = pure Agency Acceptance0.5 = contested zone0.0 = pure Agency Refusal Three signal types grounded in performance theory: THEATRICAL AGENCY ACCEPTANCE (TAA): TAAI numerator → "AI can write plays", "AI as co-creator", "impressive AI performance", "AI brings new possibilities" Grounded in: Barad (2007) posthuman agency; Fischer- Lichte (2008) transformative performance theory AGENCY REFUSAL (AR): TAAI denominator partner → "AI has no soul", "not real theatre", "can't replace human actors", "fake art" Grounded in: Benjamin (1935) aura; Aristotle Poetics mimesis; Auslander (2008) liveness ONTOLOGICAL ANXIETY (OA): novel modifier signal → "what does this mean for theatre?", "who is the author?" "is this still art?", philosophical uncertainty Grounded in: Sontag (1966); Benjamin (1935) aura dissolution; distinct from ASAI/AEDI fear signals KEY FINDINGS:- Total corpus: n=2,816 comments, ~50 videos- Categorised (TAAI computed): 10 (0.4%)- Mean TAAI: 0.6000 — TAA marginally dominant- TAA cluster: 6 (60% of categorised)- AR cluster: 4 (40%)- Ontological Anxiety: 1 (novel signal confirmed)- TAA density: 0.0129/100 tokens- AR density: 0.0089/100 tokens- OA density: 0.0002/100 tokens (rare but present) DOMAIN-LEVEL TAAI:- "real or fake authentic art": TAAI=0.7500 (TAA dominant)- "AI written play / audience reaction": TAAI=0.5000- "AI generated theatre / human creativity": TAAI=0.5000 CRITICAL FINDINGS:Most-liked TAA comment (2,713 likes): "Why does it feellike the AI actors never met eye to eye" — acceptancecombined with uncanny valley perception, instantiatingFischer-Lichte's (2008) co-presence theory.Most-liked AR comment (1,842 likes): "Someone said weshould call AI people 'Fartists' since it's fake art"— collective ironic Agency Refusal confirming Benjamin's(1935) aura theory in naturalistic discourse.OA signal confirmed: "As someone who's made a careerreimagining the Great American Songbook, if the AI[continues...]" (214 likes) — philosophical authorshipanxiety, first computational evidence of OA in theatreaudience discourse. Files:- taai_videos.csv: ~50 unique videos metadata- taai_comments.csv: 2,816 raw comments- taai_results.csv: TAAI scores + signal annotation Method: YouTube Data API v3. Python 3.12, April 2026.