On August 5, Melbourne Law School (supported by the ARC Centre of Excellence for Automated Decision Making and Society - ADM+S, and the Platform Economies Research Network - PERN) will host a workshop on the relationship between creativity and data, and the ways that creative labour has become a type of data labour.

Artists and creative industries are facing a profound set of challenges as AI companies both absorb expressive content to train generative systems as well as reorganise the production, distribution, and consumption of cultural materials. Existing policy responses have been fragmented, short term, and largely focused on copyright, and largely ignore broader issues around jobs, fair pay, cultural sovereignty, and the relationship between cultural production and national AI policy. 

This workshop takes as its starting point: 

1) that cultural policy and technology policy are inseparable, and that policy responses must look further than preserving existing copyright status quo to explore new funding models and institutional settings;

2) that alongside the ‘expressive value’ of creative content, the current technological environment embeds creative work with forms of ‘data value’ that demand careful policy and regulatory attention.

The workshop will bring together academics, artists, policy makers, and industry peak bodies to explore the pathways and possibilities of different legal and policy approaches to managing value creation and distribution in this emerging technical and creative context.

The event will conclude with a Keynote from Professor Xiyin Tang (UCLA Law School) on ‘Creativity as Data’.

We welcome applications from academics, artists, industry professionals, and policy makers to participate in the workshop. To register your interest, please provide a short paragraph of no more than 200 words to jakeg@unimelb.edu.au outlining your background and interest in the topic by July 1.

Thanks

Jake Goldenfein