Creatives are concerned about the impact of AI on their jobs
The results are from the Crafting Responsive Assessments of AI & Tech-Impacted Futures (CREAATIF) project, led by Queen Mary University of London's Digital Environment Research Institute (DERI), the Queen Mary Centre for Creative Collaboration, the Alan Turing Institute and the Institute for the Future of Work, which is researching the impacts of Generative AI (GenAI) on creative industries.
Working with UK creative industry unions and freelancer associations*, throughout 2024 the project team carried out workshops and surveys with 335^ individuals working in the creative industry to assess the impact of GenAI on the rights and working conditions of people working in creative industries. Key findings include participants saying they believe:
- while improving productivity and expanding opportunities to learn and develop for some, GenAI is worsening existing exploitative working conditions in creative industries
- GenAI has diminished the skill and agency of creative workers who are now often asked to review AI-generated work rather than creating their own original work, leading to a reduction in the financial value being attributed to creative work
- there is a lack of transparency from employers around if and how content will be used in future in relation to AI, including for training models
- these negative impacts are very likely to get worse in the coming years
The study also shows that the negative impact of GenAI on the creative industries workforce is not evenly distributed across the sector. Non-traditional workers like freelancers and the self-employed stated they had less job security and reduced earnings; there are differences between the genders, with women reporting greater losses in flexibility and revenue compared to men; and some sectors (eg translation and language services) have been more negatively impacted than others.
Dr Aoife Monks, Director of Queen Mary Centre for Creative Collaboration said: "Our results show that when it comes to supporting the creative industry workforce in this new AI era, we need fairer compensation models, stronger protections around intellectual property and clearer guidelines and transparency around the use of creative work in training AI models.
"That's why Queen Mary University is proud to be working with our collaborators, including unions and representatives from the creative industries, to co-develop cross-sector policy and regulation recommendations that will help ensure the integrity of creative work and workers' rights are maintained."
Participants did highlight benefits of AI to their industry, with many reporting that their productivity improved, and they had increase opportunities to learn and progress. Others stated that the industry need to educate themselves more about how AI is used in their sector, with one participant stating, "we can't stop the technology, so train people how to use the tools".
Professor David Leslie, Professor of Ethics, Technology and Society at Queen Mary's DERI and Principal Investigator of CREAATIF said: "The transformative effects GenAI is having on the creative industries is undeniable, so it is essential to centre and amplify the voices of creative workers so that they can play an active role in steering the direction of travel of these technologies and in managing their impacts on professional and public life. The CREAATIF project has sought to do just this, examining the effects of the proliferation of GenAI applications on creative workers through their own eyes and seeking paths forward that include them in the governance of these applications and in the policies and laws that regulate them."
Dr Abigail Gilbert, Co-Director of the Institute for the Future of Work, said: "Our evidence demonstrates that current rights and protections are not being abided by. Workers are being required, by contract, to surrender their data in ways which could see them displaced or devalued. Creative workers are not suffering from GenerativeAI, but the business models which underpin these technologies. Platform ecosystems, which rely on data extraction, use and then rent, are resistant to our current models of governance. This includes regimes which rely on single accountable agent, as with 'Data Controllers' in Data Protection law; or which do not take into account the way our different identities - consumer, citizen, worker - require different protection, such as consumer pricing as the basis of competition law. In order for creative workers not to be a canary in the mine for change afoot in other sectors, far more significant and holistic review of the consequences of GenerativeAI for people, and our economy, is required."
