Bridging the Gap - How Media can Support Young People in the Age of AI

Mentality of change 

A recent Creative Industries AI study questioned over a thousand people in the industry about their perceptions and concerns with regard to AI. Overall, 72% of participants were very positive about AI, but a shocking 100% of people within junior roles responded that they felt threatened by AI, in stark contrast to those in senior roles who generally felt empowered by AI. A significant statistic that companies need to be aware of, because at the end of the day, the generation that now feels threatened by AI, will be running these companies in the future. They are also the first generation that grew up in a constantly changing world with new technologies and rising platforms everywhere. Gen Z has the coping skills to adapt fast and to adapt quickly to their constantly changing job. So, it’s time for companies to make the younger generation feel welcomed and empowered by AI. It’s time to make sure that the technology is not being used to replace people, but instead to increase productivity and creative opportunities. 

Unfortunately, not all C-level people see it that way and want to embrace AI’s possibility to cut costs and save money. But this short-term way of thinking could lead to a significant brain-drain in the media and entertainment sector. The people in the junior roles today are the leaders of tomorrow and if the C-level abandons them, the media and entertainment sector will suffer. The key to this problem is for C-level to take the next generation under their wing and let them see they are valuable assets to the industry and their business. 

Responsibly using AI  

The debate around the definition of ethical AI will continue for many years to come. There has been a growing pressure from some campaign groups for AI companies that are using unlicensed creative content to train their generative AI models and to change their approach. So far, much of this pressure has fallen on deaf ears, this can possibly be attributed to the fact that many US lawyers argue that the approach taken (using unlicensed data) constitutes ‘fair use’. Those same lawyers often point to the lack of obvious financial losses incurred by any creative that has had their work used in training, and historical cases such as that of the Authors Guild v. Google, Inc., as an example of where the US court has deemed using unlicensed copyrighted data in a transformative way is ‘fair use’. Of course there are lawyers that take a different view who are equally forthright about their position.  

Matthew was surprised at the recent revelation by Bloomberg, that Adobe has been using images created by using Midjourney to train their own AI models. Midjourney is one of those companies that used unlicensed creative content to train their models. This means that Adobe’s previous comments around being highly ethical when compared to companies developing AI with unlicensed data were very disingenuous. Their model is directly profiting from the fact Midjourney exists and trained their model using unlicensed data. This scenario is problematic for those hoping for creatives to be paid upfront for the use of the creative content in generative AI models moving forward. The Midjourney and Adobe scenario has demonstrated that to reduce scrutiny on themselves, and to avoid damaging debates about paying license fees to content owners, companies can simply use content generated by external AI solutions already in use that were trained on unlicensed data. No one in this example can accuse Adobe of using unlicensed data to train their model, and yet they are the second-hand beneficiaries of that practice.  

Considering the situation with Adobe, we may have already lost the battle when it comes to fairly remunerating creatives upfront. Matthew argues that instead we should now focus on how we can ensure creatives are generating revenue from the output of AI models that have used their creative content in the training data. This would be a pro-innovation approach too, as paying license fees upfront for the use of creative content could curtail startups from entering the generative AI space – something we should all want to avoid. 

One viable approach may be to remunerate creatives who've had their creative content used to train the models through ‘premium prompts’. Matthew defines a premium prompt as one that would mention a particular creatives name. He argues that in such a scenario, the creative mentioned should receive a fee from the AI company or user. The reason for this thinking, is that generative AI models are trained using so much data it is hard to argue anything generated using a standard prompt is a derivative of any particular creative content. However, when a name is used in the prompt, the AI model zones in on the learnings connected to the creative content of that individual and the output is far more likely to be derivative (in a generative AI image model, this could be stylistically similar for example). This approach would see creatives remunerated on an ongoing basis, similar in a sense to how Spotify remunerates creatives based on the number of plays of their songs each month. Matthew acknowledges this proposal won’t appeal to everyone, but believes it could be a balanced approach that doesn’t block future innovation. 

Leveraging AI for creativity 

It’s interesting to see how the media and entertainment companies are looking at content creation in slightly different ways. With the new and upcoming AI tools, a lot more people will be able to create such exciting content for audiences. Take a look at  ‘Air Head’ for example, Shy Kids’ first experiment with OpenAI’s text-to-video model Sora. Made almost completely with Sora’s video output, this experiment demonstrates the capabilities of AI technology for new ways of creating media formats and content. As these tools democratise creativity and the ability of people to create impressive content, media companies should focus on how they can support young content creators on their own platforms as well.

A positive thing that Adobe has done is focus on how they can incorporate their new tools into creatives existing processes. By incorporating AI into Photoshop and Adobe Premiere, for example, they have given creatives the ability to speed up some of their regular tasks without needing to make changes to their workflows. It’s a clear path forward to other brands to incorporate AI into tools that people use on a daily basis and make the technology as accessible as possible.  

AI used to be a field where tools were only operated by AI specialists and experts, but this is no longer the case. ChatGPT really changed the dynamic of how people engage with AI. Today, creatives should be experimenting with new AI solutions to enhance their work and be part of their daily tool usage. People are not likely to be replaced by AI itself, but by people who understand and utilize AI. For the media and entertainment industry, this means it’s increasingly important to ready your employees, invest in their understanding of AI and upskill them. 

Final advice 

The shocking results of the creatives industry AI study is not a healthy environment for young people to be working in. The C-level should up their game and secure juniors in their roles by making them feel valued and seeing them as the future of our sector. The next generation coming to the job market is just as important as every previous generation, so let’s not scare them away, but instead empower them by giving them the right tools in their daily work and upskilling them where necessary.  

Generative AI has changed the game. There are new tools that will inevitably revolutionize the sector, the technology is currently at its worst point and the progress we’ve seen in the past 12 months points to more exciting breakthroughs by the end of 2024. As these solutions develop further they are likely to be used to both empower and replace workers. These decisions will come down to C-level: do they want to increase their headcount and be bullish about what can be achieved with this new technology augmenting their staff expertise, or do they want to cut staff, reduce cost, and risk a brain drain? It's a policy of austerity or of investment. We believe these new generative AI tools are a way of increasing productivity and potentially generating more revenue for the media and entertainment industry, which could help to make up for the billions lost in the streaming war. To end, we quote Matthew once more:  

Article written by Lieke Decosemaker and Matthew Blakemore, based on the podcast of Nabil Kamal MOLLA and Matthew Blakemore