Good AI Is Ethical AI: The Media & Entertainment Industry Has to Check Itself

“From a creative standpoint, from a technical standpoint, from an ethical standpoint, it's fine to screw up."

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Good AI Is Ethical AI: The Media & Entertainment Industry Has to Check Itself

“Our job is to build tools to help artists and help broadcasters and help engineers do their jobs better," SMPTE President Renard Jenkins emphasized in a recent session focused on ethics and regulation in AI.

“And so as we're building these types of tools, and we're integrating this type of technology, we also have to make sure that we are being ethical in what we are putting together."

Jenkins explained that members of this industry “are the consumers of this technology.” While that alone is table stakes for the ethics debate, he added, “We also have a great responsibility in ourselves because we are able to touch millions with a single program or a single piece of content.” Here's how the conversation went.  

Everyone in M&E Needs to Experiment With AI (Everyone!)

ETC AI and Neuroscience in Media Director Yves Bergquist wants to shift to a culture of honesty and experimentation:

“What I love about this technology is that it's a work in progress. It's a conversation in progress. And we have to use it, we have to figure out what is good for, what it's not good for, when does it work, when it's not work[ing]? When is it ethically sound?”

He maintained, “It's actually really important for all of us as a community to use the half-baked technology and participate in its development.

“From a creative standpoint, from a technical standpoint, from an ethical standpoint, it's fine to screw up. It's fine to deploy a model that has biases, as long as we have this very honest and transparent” dialog with users and consumers.  

What Role Should M&E Take in AI Ethics? (A Big One)

SMPTE has called on the media and entertainment industry to be more active and vocal in the in debate about developing ethical AI systems. Doing nothing, or not doing enough, is not an option because “failure may come at a high human cost,” the organization says.

“The time to discuss ethical considerations in AI is now, while the field is still nascent, teams are being built, products roadmapped, and decisions finalized. AI development is no longer just a technical issue, it is increasingly becoming a risk factor.”

This call for action forms a substantial part of the “SMPTE Engineering Report: Artificial Intelligence and Media,” which was  produced alongside the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the Entertainment Technology Center (ETC).   

Robert Tercek and Peter Csathy: When It Comes to Media and AI, Copyright Law Is Not an Open and Shut Case

If there’s one thing that media and Big Tech can agree on when it comes to AI, it’s that existing copyright laws are outdated and in need of an upgrade.

There’s a gray area being fought over in the courts by artists like Sarah Silverman versus companies like OpenAI over the definition of “fair use.”

Lawyers for Big Tech might be able to pull this line of attack apart by showing that their large language models are not copying copyrighted works at all.  

Don’t Put Profit Before Ethics, SMPTE’s Renard Jenkins Warns AI Developers

The competing pressure to make money from an AI product risks ethically sourced models being relegated behind the drive to monetize. Not even new AI regulation might be sufficient to stop it.

“It’s an arms race right now,” Jenkins says. “There’s a lot of money being thrown around and that sometimes drives product that it not ready for primetime, without being fully vetted for what their impact will be. It’s not just about the tool in itself in the sense of helping the creative, it really is about the impact that it has on the user and on our society as a whole. 

"That should be one of the primary things that all of these companies take into account when they’re doing this.”  

How Do You Determine the Real Value of AI for M&E? Choose Your Fighter.

Artificial intelligence is reshaping the media and entertainment industry. What’s the best approach to ensuring AI’s disruption doesn’t upend the ecosystem? For “To AI, or Not to AI? The Real Value of Artificial Intelligence,” a panel of experts relayed strong (and often opposing) views as they contended with the issue.