AI affecting diverse creative sectors
Tools like DALL-E2, Chat GPT and other generative AI programmes have captured our imagination in the headlines but what do they mean for the people working in creative industries?
AUT’s recent AI + Communications Symposium brought together a group of experts to discuss how the world is adapting to the rapid growth of AI. Some of AUT’s experts spoke to Colin Peacock from RNZ’s Mediawatch about the changes they’ve been noticing.
AUT researcher Hayley Jones spoke about the civic responsibility of journalists when gathering information and how that can come into tension with AI’s less value driven collation of information.
“Journalists generally are quite inquisitive and sceptical people, so we’re not at the stage where AI is going to automate the news gathering process or replace journalists<” she said.
This point was echoed by Dr Merja Myllylahti who used local news results served up by AI-powered chatbots as an example.
“There were no links to RNZ, there were no links to TVNZ, Newsroom.co.nz, The Spinoff, the Otago Daily Times or The Guardian which has a New Zealand section. So we have a situation where search is serving us news links for mostly just three news organisations. Google Bard most often linked to the sources, but the links go to the wrong sources or stories and random articles.”
But it’s not just news gathering and dissemination being affected by AI. Most of us have come across images or audio created entirely in computers. What does this mean for people working in the arts?
Lecturer Daniel Fastnedge used a successful overseas ad campaign that used Open AI’s DALL-E2 imager generator as an example of how it may impact artists in advertising:
“We can cut out third parties using this type of technology. We don't have to employ photographers that we would have previously to create a campaign. But I'm also going to be expected to do a job which would have taken a couple of days in a matter of 20 or 30 minutes. And that's going to increase stresses. We need to reflect on whether that is a viable and sustainable practice.”
Senior lecturer in Communication Studies Peter Hoar talked about the recent controversy surrounding an AI Drake single on TikTok and how AI could impact commercial radio.
Ultimately, the feeling across the board was that while AI may be changing how we do things, it isn’t ready to get equal billing to humans.