This is a House of Commons Committee report, with recommendations to government. The Government has two months to respond.
Culture, Media and Sport Committee
Connected tech: Smart or sinister?
Date Published: 30 August 2023
This is the report summary, read the full report.
The creative and entertainment potentials of emerging technologies are expansive, providing new ways to distribute content, enhance existing physical experiences and explore immersive virtual worlds. More people are using smart speakers and connected TVs in their homes, more games and leisure activities are incorporating augmented and virtual reality (AR/VR) technologies and more artists are relying on digital tools to help bring new creative productions to their audiences. Meanwhile, artificial intelligence (AI) has become more sophisticated and better able to generate digital art.
However, as we highlighted in our first report on connected tech, while emerging technology can offer many benefits to the creative industries and their consumers, there are also a range of risks and harms associated with their use.
Our report explores the impact of the development of AI. First, we scrutinise the UK’s proposals for regulation of AI in the round, before focusing on the implications of the proposed copyright exemptions for text and data mining (TDM), which risks reducing arts and cultural production as mere “inputs” in AI development. We call on the Government to abandon its plans for a TDM exemption and work to rebuild the trust of the creative industries.
We also evaluate the applications of creative connected technology, from AR/VR to digital and AI-generated art. We explore three case studies, which have shaped our conclusions and recommendations about creative technology and showcase the many different ways that the creative industries are using technology to develop new, immersive cultural experiences. We also consider how the skills shortages in the creative and tech sectors are limiting the growth and potential of creative technology in the UK despite headline successes, and how AI outputs are disrupting traditional cultural production. We recommend that the Government address the issue of skills in its upcoming Cultural Education Plan and ensure that creatives’ rights are protected from AI-generated media in the future.