New Dublin event to tackle vexed question of AI and the arts

RTÉ News​

21-05-2025

This Thursday, Let's make AI:OK for music and the creative sector takes place at the National Concert Hall in Dublin to discuss the impact of AI on the creative arts in Ireland
It is one of the great questions and challenges of the first quarter of the 21st century - will Artificial Intelligence enrich our lives or will the near-future be a joyless dystopia where machines do all our thinking and human creativity becomes redundant?
It has long been the theme of countless sci-fi books and movies and while it is still only in its infancy, AI is already everywhere - from the `AI slop,' deepfakes, fake news, and memes that clog up our social media to search engine bots.
In the new Mission: Impossible movie, the Entity, an advanced, self-aware AI plans to destroy the world by hacking into countries' nuclear arsenals. Which may even be scarier that those hyper-realistic deepfake videos of Tom Cruise on TikTok.
And, as usual, when it comes to new tech, it is the creative arts that are the canary in the coalmine of these radical disruptions. Struggling musicians, film makers and authors already facing existential threats now have to contend with the creeping and, let's face it, creepy rise of a technology that has the potential to have a huge impact on their livelihoods.
For Dr Martin Clancy, the genie is already very much out of the bottle. He's a senior researcher in artificial intelligence and its potential impact on the creative arts and the founder of AI:OK, an initiative dedicated to promoting the responsible use of AI in the music industry.
He is on a mission to educate, demystify and protect rights and employment in the face of this new technology.
This Thursday, he will be part of "Let's make AI:OK for music and the creative sector," a free event at the National Concert Hall in Dublin discussing the impact of AI on the creative arts in Ireland.
Organisers are calling for an ethical and responsible path for AI integration and the the event will be "an exploration and a call to action, highlighting both the threats and potential of AI within Ireland's creative sectors."
Dr Clancy has skin in the game and not just as a lecturer and campaigner for fair use of AI.
The softly spoken academic has had a long career in the music industry. He was a founding member of Dublin band In Tua Nua and has managed successful Kildare singer Jack L for over thirty years.
Supported by Enterprise Ireland and Research Ireland, he has become a global voice in the movement for ethical AI in the creative industries and is a Senior AI Research Fellow at Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics at DCU and a Policy Fellow at Trinity College Dublin's Long Room Hub.
"This Saturday is about giving people a chance to figure AI out themselves," he says. "Whether you're a writer or a musician or a nurse of an accountant. AI is everywhere. We will be asking what are people worried about? What do they think? We want to address those questions and keep supporting the arts."
Without blinding us with science, Let's make AI:OK for music and the creative sector aims to explain in plain language the good and the bad of AI and let people make up their own minds.
It will feature a panel made of experts and interested parties, including Prof. Noel O'Connor, CEO of Insight Research Ireland Centre for Data Analytics, Anna McPartlin, an author, film producer, and screenwriter of RTÉ drama Gone, and Ciaran Conroy, Acting CEO of the Association of Independent Music Ireland (AIM).
"We're bringing in a range of people to say this is why we care," Clancy says. "Anna McPartlin is making her first movie this year and she is horrified by AI.
"She's spent the last thirty years writing a bunch of books in her voice and she works as a tv producer and an author. It's all about developing her individual voice and about 18 months ago I sent her a piece written by AI in the style of Anna McPartland and she went nuts. It's as simple as that. This NCH event is about getting people to talk about their concerns."
The event is timely as it follows the announcement of the Irish government's new guidelines for the responsible use of artificial intelligence in the public service.
Dr Clancy's work has taken him all over the world to share his expertise in the area. He first became involved in an area clouded by copyright and creative ownership through his job teaching DJs how to use a software called Ableton.
His interest in the area led to him being invited by Trinity College to do PhD on the subject and his research led to a book, Artificial Intelligence and Music Ecosystem, which was published just before the advent of ChatGPT in 2022.
AI:OK has support from the major record labels, music streamer Deezer and music industry bodies such as the American Association of Independent Music, AIMP (Association of Independent Music Publishers), and the Association of Independent Music Ireland.
"When I was doing my research I could see what was coming," Dr Clancy says. "As opposed to having a dystopian vision it was important to figure out at some point what was ok and what was not ok about AI."
So, what does he see as the threats posed by AI? "The threats are really simple," he says. "I've worked in music for forty years, doing pretty much everything you can imagine. Most people who work in music have two or three jobs and most of those jobs are threatened by AI and they don't necessarily have to be.
"The idea here is very simple - if we mark products and services that are helpful for humans to stay in work, there's not too much not to dislike about that."
Musicians and film makers have already begun the fightback. Last year, Hollywood ground to a halt after filmmakers and writers went on strike over big studios' plans to introduce AI into film production.
Last week in the House Of Commons, producer Giles Martin - son of Beatles producer George Martin - led a delegation calling on the UK government to do more to protect artists from AI as the controversial Data (Use and Access) Bill makes its make through parliament.
The UK government recently rejected proposals from the House of Lords to force AI companies to disclose what material they were using to develop their programmes.
A spokesperson for the British government said that "no changes" to copyright laws would be "considered unless we are completely satisfied they work for creators".
Elton John, a man who has never being a shrinking violet when it comes to the inequities of the music industry, was very forthright in an interview with BBC News last Sunday.
"For young people and for everyone who is creative the fact that AI could run rampant is scary," he said. "You have to ask for approval and you have to have transparency. It's quite simple. If someone wants to use your song, ask, and then you have to have transparency about how it's used.
"But the danger is young artists haven't got the resources to fight big tech if there is a lawsuit or anything like that. I am very angry about it. A machine is incapable of writing anything with any soul in it. When you try to rob young people of their creativity, it's a criminal offence."
Dr Clancy is not opposed to AI. He believes that it is better to ride the tiger's back than to be eaten by the tiger.
"The one thing that we can all be certain of is that there is no great AI art being made, like something new, something really fantastic like hip-hop," he says.
"At the moment it is very pedestrian and very predictable but a moment will come soon with this technology where something fantastic will happen.
"My personal agenda is - find out what's happening, go and do some crazy stuff, ideally with tools that are ethical - meaning that some humans are getting paid for using them.
"When we find that, we might find some way of making a living from it. If we can't think of a way of fixing it or at least approaching it then we should really give up. There is only a short window to get this right."
Let's make AI:OK for music and the creative sector takes place at Dublin's National Concert Hall on Thursday, 22 May at 1pm.