AI Café presents: Generative AI in Media: societal, ethical, and legal perspectives

May 7th, 2024 from 15h to 16h CEST

Description of the Talk 

Generative AI (GenAI) offers a variety of opportunities for media organizations across the media cycle of news gathering, content creation, editing, and distribution. At the same time, GenAI raises serious societal, ethical, and legal considerations in the context of media which cannot be overlooked.

The EU H2020 AI4Media project delves into the multidisciplinary considerations that AI raises for the media sector. Through core research, real-world applications, and analysis of the impact of media AI , the project aims to become a center of excellence on the topic. One of the key pillars in the project has been to explore the societal, ethical and legal implications of AI - and now also GenAI.

During this AI Café AI4Media researchers, Anna Scjøtt Hansen, Noémie Krack, and Lidia Dutkiewicz will each address one of these three core considerations around GenAI. This includes raising questions about emerging power imbalances in the media landscape, the impact GenAI might have on human creativity, its environmental costs as well as its impact on (dis)information ecosystems and copyright challenges related to harvesting data to build large language models. This Café  will also reflect on whether and how new EU Iegal frameworks, such as the AI Act, mitigate these challenges.

The Café will conclude with a presentation of the AI Media Observatory - an interactive knowledge platform on AI in media. The Café will explain how the audience can benefit from and contribute to this one-stop-shop on AI & Media. 

SPEAKERS: 

Anna Schjøtt Hansen - University of Amsterdam 

Speaker´s Short Bio

Anna Schjøtt Hansen is a technological anthropologist and PhD Candidate at the Media Studies Department at the University of Amsterdam. Her PhD research consists of multiple case studies where she ethnographically explores how responsible AI is conceptualised and pursued in practice in the media sector – predominately in Europe – to critically examine the politics of AI design processes and their implications. She does her research as part of the AI4Media project, where she among others has co-authored a whitepaper on societal, economic and political impacts of AI in media and several other short reports. She is also the current editor-in-chief of the AI Media Observatory.

Noémie Krack - Centre for IT and IP law (CiTiP) of KU Leuven

Speaker´s Short Bio

Noémie Krack is a researcher at the Centre for IT and IP law (CiTiP) of KU Leuven - imec. Her research focuses on media law, artificial intelligence and the challenges that technology raises for fundamental rights. Currently, she is studying the impact of the use of AI and Generative AI for information and content manipulation through the lens of fundamental rights and new EU legislations. She has worked on several European Union interdisciplinary projects on technology and media, including AI4Media and MediaFutures. She provides guest lectures in the Media law class of the KU Leuven programme Master of Intellectual Property and ICT Law (LL.M.). In AI4Media, she conducted legal and ethical research on content moderation, AI regulation and developed policy recommendations for the use of AI in the media sector. She also contributed to the creation of the European AI Media Observatory, led by UVA, of which she is also an Editorial Board Member.

Lidia Dutkiewicz - Centre for IT and IP law (CiTiP) of KU Leuven

Speaker´s Short Bio

Lidia Dutkiewicz is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for IT and IP law (CiTiP) of KU Leuven - imec. In her Ph.D. research, she analyses the phenomenon of “platformization” of news and the impact of algorithmic content moderation on media freedom, media pluralism, and editorial independence. Lidia acts as an ethical advisor in vera.ai (VERification Assisted by Artificial Intelligence) project focusing on AI disinformation and she assesses legal requirements for trustworthy news recommender systems in the ALGEPI project. In the AI4Media project, she studies the impact of AI media applications (including generative AI) on fundamental rights and she investigates the EU regulation of content moderation. She provides legal and ethical guidance and develops policy recommendations for the use of trustworthy AI in the media sector. She is also an Editorial Board Member of the AI Media Observatory.

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All the recordings of past AI-Cafés are available on this YouTube channel.

AI-Café Team

Carmen Mac Williams - Organizer, and Moderator of the AI-Cafe. She is the Director of the company Grassroots Arts, and a partner in the European AI4media project.