‘Really important to get this right’: Summit looks at intersection between AI, culture

An artificial intelligence summit in Banff is examining the intersection of culture and AI.

Approximately 300 people came out for the National Summit on Artificial Intelligence and Culture in Banff, including those working in music and the performing arts, publishing, art curation, academia and tech.

“A lot of people have questions about the impact of artificial intelligence on their industry,” said Marc Miller, Canadian identity and culture minister.

“A lot of apprehension, a lot of fear, but a lot of possibilities of what AI can do.”

Samuel Tetreault, co-founder of Les 7 Doigts de la Main, helped to kick off the two-day event at the Banff Centre for the Arts and Creativity, showing how AI has helped his theatrical group.

He had an acrobat perform, which was mimicked by AI and put on a screen, creating a silhouette of the individual’s performance.

“The idea was to create an interactive system,” said Tetreault.

“Generative AI, the toothpaste is out of the tube—it’s not going to go back in. As a stage creator and performing arts creator, I think it’s better to learn how to use these tools.”

Evan Solomon, artificial intelligence and digital innovation minister, highlighted that some are meeting AI with pom-poms while others have pitchforks.

“This summit is about talking about where the opportunities are. How can we capitalize on them in a way that’s responsible and safe, and how do we make sure that we job-proof the future?” said Solomon.

Many music producers are concerned about the illegal use of their work through AI.

“It’s the top of everybody’s agenda,” said Margaret McGuffin, Music Publishers Canada CEO.

“We want to make sure the songwriter gets paid and the rights owners develop the next generation of songwriters. It’s really important to get this right.”

McGuffin highlighted sites like ChatGPT distributing music without compensating artists.

The Indigenous Curatorial Collective, the national art service organization that supports art, film, dance and theatre, came to Banff looking for ways to develop policies to protect Indigenous artists and curators.

In recent weeks, it took artists’ work down from a cloud system so AI could not capitalize on it.

“We didn’t want any of the work to be able to be scraped like that,” said Liz Barron, Indigenous Curatorial Collective director of operations.

The National Summit on Artificial Intelligence and Culture wraps up Tuesday.