Recently I spoke to a Women in Media Victoria event about the rise of Artificial Intelligence, in my role as Federal Media section president of the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance.
Here’s an edited version of my speech.
Karen Percy at October’s Women In Media Victoria event discussing Artificial Intelligence.
Hi everyone.. thanks for the lovely introduction.
I want to acknowledge that we are on the land of the Wurundjeri people here in Naarm, who are the traditional owners but also the original storytellers and truth tellers of this land.
Many of you will have heard of William Barak, a well-known elder of this land. Few would know about his sister Annie, or Boret, who according to First Nations websites went to the Merri Creek Mission school, married twice and had four children. She was able to marry twice because of the tribal equivalent back in the mid 1800s of “no fault” divorce. She’s acknowledged as a matriarch of her people. I mention this detail because women’s rights across the world are in peril.
I pay my respects to elders past and present, and to any Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders in the room tonight.
Now I didn’t get AI to write this acknowledgement. But as I was researching the First Nations people of this area of Melbourne, there was certainly that option.
Would it have saved me time? Almost certainly. Would it have been accurate? Possibly, maybe, probably not. Would it have defeated the purpose of doing the research? Absolutely. One of the aims on an acknowledgement is to have us as non-Aboriginal people learn about the history of what has been before and to think about what that means for today.
Depending on your point of view, Artificial Intelligence is either the greatest time-saver and innovation since the washing machine or it is the monster that will kill creativity.
I’m probably somewhere in the middle, but I do very much worry about the latter.
And I guess my attitude is just because we can, doesn’t mean we should.
For journalists the most obvious change has been the proliferation of quick, inexpensive and mostly accurate transcription programs. AI services have made a huge difference in that task, saving huge amounts of time and stress in the process.
BUT – and there had to be a but – it has opened up other concerns about where the data goes, who has access to it. Even for paid subscriptions.
Some news organisations have stopped using such programs, looking to develop programs in-house or making journalists go back to the deep dark days of transcribing themselves.
It is absolutely fundamental to journalists to be able to protect sources. I realised that as a freelancer, without the benefit of firewalls and IT departments, that I really didn’t know how I could be sure my program recordings and documents were private.
So, I have gone back to pen and paper, and what limited shorthand I remember from university, and my own shortforms and notations. It is more work, but I feel much more comfortable that I can protect material and my sources.
The bottom line is for many of us, AI means added uncertainty to our work and our lives.
MEAA represents 16000 workers across media, the music industry, film/television/live theatre, and sporting and other events. Many of our members are freelance or casual, essentially gig workers whose incomes rely on their creativity.
AI can mimic voices, can stand in as actors, can scrape news investigations, can manipulate and merge photos and artwork, can use music and lyrics at will. All of this is being done without our knowledge, without our consent, without compensation for us.
MEAA sees the real risk that our members’ work will be effectively stolen by AI and the tech giants, who once again will make money without any investment in the work themselves.
According to the AI giants, anything on the web is fair game. Microsoft in particular is pushing for a “rethink” of copyright provisions. They say they don’t have a business if they have to pay for it!
Imagine that!! Complaining that if you have to pay for the inputs of your business, that you can’t survive without free stuff.
Wouldn’t it be great to not have to pay anything for the raw products your company relies on?? Hardly very realistic but this is what we are faced with.
Here’s another thing. When I was fact checking this speech, asking about Microsoft’s attitude towards copyright, initially I had real trouble finding anything. That’s odd I thought, I’m sure I had read something in the past week. Then it struck me, I was using Microsoft’s browser Bing, which automatically deploys its AI program Co-Pilot, and it found old stories from a year ago where Microsoft was offering legal protection to clients around AI. But nothing more recent.
I laughed out loud when I realised Microsoft’s browser and AI generator Co-Pilot where clearly omitting results that reflected badly on them!
I went to Google and it was a bit easier to find – but not right there where it should have been. Google also is training AI right??
So, a big part of the problem I see is how we are being manipulated and gamed by Big Tech, the Social Media Giants and others who are used to doing exactly what they want. All under a cloud of secrecy – commercial in confidence or whatever terminology the companies want to use.
That’s why MEAA is pushing for an AI Act that would force greater transparency and disclosure around the use of data as a way to prevent theft of original works.
If left unchecked AI is in danger of devaluing original work, diminishing Australia’s unique culture, and is a serious threat to public trust in important institutions, such as the media.
So please when you are using AI be sure what you use is accurate and that it comes from reliable sources. Give credit where you can. And be mindful of whose work has been used to train the program.
And join MEAA’s campaign to ensure there are guardrails and regulations around AI use.
Go to our website and sign the petition asking the federal government to put forward an AI Act.
Click through the link below:
https://www.meaa.org/stop-ai-theft/