September 13, 2023

Generative AI & the Creativity Cycle

The Engelberg Center and Creative Commons co-sponsor a full day of critical conversations with experts across generative AI, cultural heritage, and contemporary creativity.

Generated by AI: A white robot with a look of concentration on their face, wearing a red cap and robe, painting an empty gold picture frame with a brush that has an abstract flower growing up from its handle.

10:00am-10:10am Welcome and Opening Remarks

Catherine Stihler (CEO, Creative Commons)
Brigitte Vézina (Creative Commons)

10:10am-10:55am Can AI propel cultural heritage institutions through their digital transformation?

AI has been used as an enabler for several cultural heritage institutions’ (CHIs) transformational goals: from digitization, to preservation, to providing open access to users far and wide. How can digital and AI technologies help institutions realize their mission? This panel will probe the role of AI in ensuring CHIs’ relevance in the 21st century.

Mike Kemezis, (Connecticut Humanities), moderator
Mike Trizna (Smithsonian Institution)
Garvita Kapur (The New York Public Library)
Abbey Potter (Library of Congress)
Amanda Figueroa (Curationist)

11:05am-11:50am Can AI help everyone enjoy culture as a global public good?

In 2022, UNESCO declared culture a global public good, paving the way for culture to be recognized as a sustainable development goal in and of itself. The advent of AI technologies hold many promises to reduce the barriers for enjoyment of culture by people all over the world, especially for marginalized groups such as women, youth and Indigenous peoples. At the same time, AI may pose risks in perpetuating cultural power imbalances. This panel will strive to determine how AI can concretely support culture as a global public good.

Brigitte Vézina (Creative Commons), moderator
Yacine Jernite (Hugging Face)
Stacey Lantagne (Western New England University)
Nicholas Garcia (Public Knowledge)

12:00pm-12:45pm Fair remuneration of creators — Can AI be an answer?

This panel will look at existing and potential remuneration models for creators in the age of AI and explore solutions for fair and equitable retribution of creators, including through the lens of distributive justice.

Ami Bhatt (McKinsey & Co), moderator
Justin Haan (Morrison Foerster)
Wade Wallerstein (Grey Area)
Karen Darricades (CC Canada)
Carla Gannis (NYU)

__1:30pm-2:15pm Copyright and open sharing of heritage collections and data: bounty or bane for creativity in the age of AI? __

This panel will focus on some of the challenges posed by copyright, on a global scale, with regards to sharing of cultural heritage, with humans and machines. It will also explore the barriers that cultural heritage institutions face in sharing their collections, and the opportunities that emerge when they are able to do so.

Marta Belcher (Filecoin Foundation), moderator
Aviya Skowron (EleutherAI)
Dave Hansen (Authors Alliance)
Rebekah Tweed (All Tech Is Human)
Eryk Salvaggio (Siegel Family Endowment)

2:25pm-3:10pm Diversity, inclusivity, sustainability, and cultural identity — What role for AI?

This panel will focus on the necessary interplay between labeling of culture heritage materials and the creation of datasets for ML/AI, with a particular view to emerging practices around the ethical sharing of cultural heritage.

Matthew Allen (BRIC Arts), moderator
Allison Sherrick (METRO)
Kengchakaj (elekhlekha artist collective)
Minne Atairu (Columbia University)

3:20pm-4:05pm Creativity, machines, and the heritage commons — What collaboration opportunities are there?

This panel will bring together those who are actively experimenting with and using AI technologies in conversation with creators and cultural heritage practitioners who steward heritage collections in the commons.

Nitcha Tothong (eleklekha artist collective), moderator
Sasha Stiles (Artist)
Max Sills (Midjourney)
Sarvesh Mahajan (Crowell & Moring)

4:15pm-5:00pm Users are creators — Is AI blurring the lines of creativity in the copyright framework?

With AI opening the doors to fresh modes of creative expression, the traditional roles of art creators and users blend into each other to offer new forms of collaborative creation. This panel will focus on the new intertwined patterns at play in the creativity process enabled by AI technologies.

Scott Sholder (CDAS), moderator
Kayvan Ghaffari (MakersPlace),
Jennie Rose Halperin (Library Futures)
Heather Timm (Artist)

5:00pm-5:05pm Closing Remarks

Jennie Rose Halperin and Scott Sholder discussing AI and copyright

Kayvan Ghaffari on the AI and copyright panel