I hope my final work allows audiences to consider a way AI and ADM are impacting specific parts of industries involved in their everyday lives they might have not considered before. Most people enjoy watching television shows and films, yet they might not know that studio executives have cut the writers’ wages and creative rights in favour of AI generated material, which is more cost and time efficient (Townsend, 2024). However, there are many problems with AI generated creative writing such as ethical issues, “lack of emotional intelligence”, and the risk of replacing human writers (Townsend, 2024). I hope my final piece demonstrates to audiences how AI is becoming dominant in creative industries, which is not as obvious as AI’s development in other sectors of everyday life, yet has a major impact on the way we consume media, which is a key concern of the studio. Though the studio exhibition was quite small, I feel proud to have shown my work to the class. As media students, I hope that my topic is relevant and interesting to them, and I hope they now understand the pressures writers in the media industry are under when they are forced to compete with AI generated material. Hopefully the audience has a deeper appreciation for media, screen, and creative writers.

The most successful part of my work was my interview with Meg Herrmann. Her insight, perceptions, and knowledge turned into a fundamental part of the video. I’m glad that I interviewed her well in advance to the due date, so I had time to go through the recording of the interview in depth and source the best parts. For example, I really enjoyed when she spoke about the differences in human and machine thinking; she said that machines are simply trained on pre-existing data and whilst they are really good at recognising patterns, it isn’t capable of complete originality, which is different from the “stretchy, plastic ways in which the human brain works” (Herrmann, 2024). This complemented my research about how AI should be seen as a collaborator in the creative industries, not something that will replace creative workers, because both humans and AI have advantages and disadvantages that the other does not (Kinder, 2024). The most problematic aspect of my final video was the amount of screen-recordings/found footage I used. Whilst I do believe all of my found footage is necessary and enhances the audience’s understanding (for example, demonstrating the use chatbots and ChatGPT prompts), I also would have liked for this to be presented in a more creative way. A challenge for me was demonstrating information creatively. Something I included in all my planning was the use of handwritten text to accompany parts of my voiceover. Due to time restrictions, unfortunately I was unable to achieve this which is very disappointing for me as it could have enhanced the visual creativity of the video.

If I were to continue working on this piece, I would include more b-roll footage. Perhaps I could have used shots of writing in everyday life, like in universities or workplaces. Perhaps I could have also interviewed a professional creative writer about their opinions and experiences with AI and ADM, and obtained b-roll of them working. Having an actual writer sharing their insight would strengthen my piece and made it more personal. Moreover, I would also like to include more of Meg’s interview. She shared some really fantastic and insightful thoughts about AI in creative work places and if I were to extend the video, it would be a great opportunity to explore more topics. Like I have mentioned before, I would also like to make my piece more visually creative. That includes my original idea of handwritten text, and also more aesthetically pleasing b-roll. I liked the shots I had of flipping through books, so perhaps more of those types of shots.

Something I’ve learnt through the semester in this studio is how much automated decision making (ADM) impacts our lives in all areas. ADM can have large influences on our lives as it makes assumptions about you as a person, which can sometimes have negative consequences. For example, we discussed a lot of about the Robodebt occurrence in Australia, in which an ADM system was supposed to be determining whether people were receiving more Centrelink payments than they should be. Due to major flaws in the system, Robodebt was sending debt notices to people who didn’t deserve them. This is one of many examples of ADM having serious flaws without any human input to regulate the system when it’s not working the way it is meant to (Cheong et al, 2023). Furthermore, because ADM is made by humans, ADM systems perpetuate the same biases humans have that is present in its data sets, which leaves us with unfair and inequal systems. There are so many examples of ADM in all aspects of our lives, such as job screening algorithms, credit score generators, criminal sentencing algorithms, identifying and recognition systems and many more (Cheong et al, 2023); before coming into this studio I had not considered the consequences of a lack of human involvement in these systems and the amount of data that is collected from us.

In terms of working collaboratively, my experience in this studio has been positive. We were quite a small studio and only one of our assessments was a group one, but I was happy with the experiences I had. Like all group work, effective and clear communication is important and something people (including myself) often struggle with when working with a new group. Establishing contact details, working methods quickly (e.g. a google doc), and delegating tasks is something I find important when working collaboratively, so no one is confused about what they’re doing, and everyone has an equal amount of work. However, I found that all members had their ideas heard and contributed to during group work in this studio. It would have been beneficial to have a larger class as ours was very small, so we could work with different people for various tasks. Nevertheless, working collaboratively in this studio was a positive experience.

 

References:

Cheong M, Murray T, and Paterson J (2023) The flawed algorithm at heart of Robodebt, Pursuit website, accessed 23 October 2024. https://pursuit.unimelb.edu.au/articles/the-flawed-algorithm-at-the-heart-of-robodebt

Kinder M (2024) Hollywood writers went on strike to protect their livelihoods from generative AI. Their remarkable victory matters for all workers, Brookings website, accessed 24 September 2024. https://www.brookings.edu/articles/hollywood-writers-went-on-strike-to-protect-their-livelihoods-from-generative-ai-their-remarkable-victory-matters-for-all-workers/#:~:text=Among%20their%20list%20of%20demands,complement%E2%80%94not%20replace%E2%80%94them

Townsend S (6 March 2024) ‘The Rise of AI in Film: How AI Script Writing is Changing the Game’, Medium, accessed 23 October 2024. https://medium.com/@channelasaservice/the-rise-of-ai-in-film-how-ai-script-writing-is-changing-the-game-04509a15c9fe#:~:text=AI%20script%20writing%20works%20by,them%20in%20the%20creative%20process