On Wednesday 28th June, over 40 attendees joined us in the Engineering Building for this event which was part of the Digital Futures Createch theme and explored how the emergence of Chat GPT has impacted on the Creative and Heritage sectors. This networking event brought together a cross disciplinary selection of the most up to date and innovative researchers and practitioners to share their ideas and experiences with others within the sector.
The increasing prevelance of artificial intelligence (AI) and creative replicating agents (such as Chat GPT 4) has had an immediate and far-reaching impact on both the creative and the heritage sectors. With incidents such as Prizes being won for AI generated images and songs to job threats to voice actors, it is clear conversations are important. With Chat GPT 5 due for release in December and increased applications of AI across the board, what does this mean for the creative and heritage sectors and those working and creating in this space?
The event explored issues such as:
- How is digital content being developed, used and commercialised in the digital economy?
- What are we all learning together?
- How can ideas for new content can be stimulated in these often overlooked communities?
- How can we address the feeling of being excluded by digital natives from the creative industries?
- What will be the significance of ’Creativity Culture’ for the future?
Our Createch theme lead Anita Greenhill kicked things off by giving an overview of the Digital Futures Createch theme and an introduction to the topic of the day, Chat GPT.
Click here to view Anita's slides
Our first guest Speaker was Mairéad Pratschke. Mairéad is Professor and Chair in Digital Education in the School of Arts, Languages and Cultures at the University of Manchester. She holds a Ph.D. in History from McMaster University in Canada, an M.A. in European Studies from K.U. Leuven in Belgium, and is author of a book on Irish documentary film, entitled Visions of Ireland, as well as several articles and essays on the representation of identity in film and media. Mairéad spoke about the impact of AI and generatives on the culture, creativity and Heritage Industries.
Next up we were joined by Ernestina Zhu, a PhD Researcher in Sociology (NFT), Research Associate(XR project) at the University of Manchester. Currently conducting PhD level research in NFT and digital society at the University of Manchester, Ernestina is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Law, and Tutor for Marketing at the Manchester Metropolitan University. Her talk approached ChatGPT and AI-generated art from the perspective of a practicing artist and technological researcher. What does it mean for the creative industry? How does NFT play a role in this? Should we be concerned about the future of creativity? How can we make better use of it?
Click here to view Ernestina's slides. | Click here to watch Ernestina's presentation.
After the talks Mairéad, Anita and Ernestina joined us again to take part in a panel discussion. Attendees were invited to put their questions to the panel giving them the oportunity to further explore the issues raised .
This was followed by lunch and a networking sesssion before we came together again to take part in a world-cafe workshop where smaller groups were formed to start discussions on thier own views of Chat GPT and how it has impacted their areas of work and expertise. We will be synthesising the outputs from this World Cafe workshop to inform a follow up event. More information to follow.
Thank you to our wonderful guest speakers and attendees for joining us at this event. Sign up to the Digital Futures newsletter here to keep updated with future events and opportunities,