Former Netflix and Warner Bros. executive Victoria Furniss has launched the Alliance for Responsible Innovation in the Arts & Media, a new AI-focused content coalition dedicated to supporting “responsible and sustainable AI innovation and the importance of human creativity.”
The initial members of the coalition, announced Monday, include Disney, the New York Times, Adobe, Condé Nast, the Financial Times, ITV, Advance, BBC, Cambridge University Press & Assessment, U.K. publisher Reach and Wiley.
Many of the coalition’s members have either struck deals with AI companies or are developing their own AI tools, all as the creative community writ large has oscillated between embracing the technology or reckoning with the threat it poses to the media and entertainment industries. Last week, the Directors Guild of America became the latest of Hollywood’s major unions to enshrine new AI protections into its tentative agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers following deals made with SAG-AFTRA and the Writers Guild of America.
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Furniss, who currently leads the Birdella Group as CEO and co-founder, said in a statement she didn’t want to “slow AI down” but instead make sure it can “sustain the broader ecosystems long term.” The group plans to argue for legal and policy guardrails around AI’s usage, with its funding directed towards analyses, tools and services focused on advancing those initiatives. (Furniss declined to share the group’s initial launch funding.”
“ARIAM is a first-of-its-kind cross content sector coalition seeking to ensure that AI supports human creativity, respects the rule of law, and safeguards consumers,” Furniss said. “AI developers have a genuine opportunity to ensure that creativity and innovation both flourish.”
ARIAM’s target beneficiaries include “consumers (particularly children), creators, and, more broadly, our culture, society, and democratic institutions.” Another one of the group’s launch advisers is Damian Collins, OBE, who previously served as the U.K. Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State in the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology under prime ministers Boris Johnson and Liz Truss.
“Using AI to break the law can never be an acceptable excuse,” he said in a statement. “Laws around personal safety, intellectual property and financial crime still apply in the age of AI. This is why ARIAM has been created and why I’m proud to working with this necessary initiative.”