This week the UK Government have been holding an AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park. This is being promoted as a critical conversation and consultation on the future of these technologies and what approaches the UK might take. One of the aims is to produce a set of global principles for the development of AI. The Bletchley Declaration sets out key principles and has been signed by 29 countries. It states that “ … for the good of all, AI should be design, developed, deployed, and used, in a manner that is safe, in such a way as to be human-centric, trustworthy and responsible”. The Declaration is potentially the starting point for action to ensure the hugely challenging and impactful consequences of AI poses.
In addition to the summit at Bletchley Park, a series of AI Fringe events led by academics are discussing some of the pressing issues that we are currently facing in the development of AI; these include questions of justice, equality and responsibility
The use of such technologies will have a huge impact on a wide range of sectors, including the Creative and Cultural Industries, such as film and television, video games, music, art and design. In response to building concern from researchers and professionals, we held our own AI Summit in September focussing on Creative and Cultural Industries.
LICA (Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts) encompasses a range of subjects including Design, Architecture, Theatre, Fine Art and Film and we held panel sessions with experts on these and other areas such as music and the performing arts, to which we invited academics and industry professionals from the North West and beyond.
During the summit we captured the thoughts of the attendees about the opportunities and challenges CCIs face now and in the future. Responses to the question “What are the key opportunities you see AI offering the creative industries right now?” included the potential to generate ideas, sketches and basic concept development, greater agility and speed and saving time with initial pitches. Responses to the question “What are the key challenges you see AI offering the creative industries right now?”, included plagiarism, job loss, copyright and trust issues, authenticity and people not understanding how to use it responsibly. These responses are just a snap-shot taken during the summit, and we will be carrying out further research in the coming months.
Our summit is the beginning of a longer term cross-disciplinary project, led by academics from LICA (Lancaster Institute of Contemporary Arts) and CCI industry experts. We will be producing a report from our summit soon. The videos from the summit are being made available daily, you can catch the keynote talk given by Kate Shepherd and Matt Parry, Co-Founders of The Future Collective and unfold:ai by visiting our site here https://vimeo.com/880096948/2b2965900a?share=copy
You can also access the videos from the day here: https://vimeo.com/showcase/10765269
The panels: Provocation: Let’s Panic; Film and TV; Design, advertising and marketing; architecture; music and performing arts.
Dr Louise Mullagh and Dr Naomi Jacobs
For more information please contact ai-summit@lancaster.ac.uk
Louise Mullagh
Naomi Jacobs
Rachel Cooper