The rise of generative AI in the form of foundation models that can produce text and images has begun to reshape the creative industries, raising important questions about authorship, art, and the very nature of creativity. The UK’s creative industries, which contributed £126bn to the economy in 2022, face new challenges: while AI is marketed with a promise of democratising creativity and opening up new avenues for expression, it also threatens to undermine traditional notions of authorship, particularly when models are trained on copyrighted material scraped from the web without permission. Writers now grapple with questions of originality and the ethical implications of using AI-generated content. Is AI a tool for enhancing creativity or does it pose a threat to authentic human expression?

At the heart of the conversation is the tension between AI as a productivity tool and its threat to existing craft and skills. Could AI inspire new voices, especially those who have been historically underrepresented, or will it widen existing barriers to entry? Can generative AI's mimicry ever rival the deliberate and careful choices of human expression?

As part of the Digital Future Institute’s Living Well With Technology series, a panel of experts will tackle these topics, examining the intersection of AI, literature, and cultural production, and considering how we might navigate the evolving landscape of authorship, credit, and creative expression.

You do not need any prior knowledge of AI to enjoy this event. 

This festival event is a collaboration between the King’s Institute for Artificial Intelligence and the Digital Futures Institute.

Register on Eventbrite.

Speakers

Host: Professor Kate Devlin is Professor of Artificial Intelligence & Society in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities and the Chair-Director of the Digital Futures Institute, King’s College London. She is also King’s lead investigator on the UKRI’s Responsible AI UK programme, which brings together researchers from across the UK to understand how we should shape the development of AI to benefit people, communities and society.

Dr Clementine Collett is a BRAID research fellow at the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy at The University of Cambridge and Principal Investigator on the project ‘Co-designing responsible technology and policy for the impact of generative AI on the writing and publishing of the novel’ in partnership with the Institute for the Future of Work.

Professor Genevieve Lively is a Professor of Classics and Director of the Research Institute for Sociotechnical Cyber Security at the University of Bristol. She is also a Turing Fellow. She is a classicist working on narrative and the editor of the newly published Routledge Handbook of AI and Literature.

Dr Sarah Perry is a Visiting Research Fellow in the Faculty of Arts & Humanities, King’s College London. She is a Booker Prize-nominated bestselling novelist and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. 

King's Festival of Artificial Intelligence

This event is part of the King’s Festival of Artificial Intelligence. Running from Tuesday 20 May to Saturday 24 May, the free, five-day festival brings together a diverse line-up of experts to consider critical questions about artificial intelligence in the context of healthcare, education, sustainability, policy, and creativity.

If you are interested in this event, you may also want to join us for:

• AI Dreams and Sci-Fi Nightmares (online)
• Bletchley Park and AI (online)
• Magic, Minds, and the Mysteries of AI
• The Loop: A New Musical About AI

Festival events will take place across several King’s venues, so please check carefully where the event is taking place. Festival event times may be subject to change. Any changes will be communicated to attendees via Eventbrite emails.

Please note, King's events are free, which means we routinely overbook to allow for no-shows and avoid empty seats. Admission is on a first come, first served basis, so please arrive in good time to avoid disappointment. We will not be able to admit those without tickets or latecomers.