Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Production: Critical Perspectives on Digital Platforms

16 Feb 2024

By Ashton Tey

The Department of Communications and New Media was honored to receive a talk from esteemed Dr Dal Yong Jin on his book Artificial Intelligence in Cultural Production: Critical Perspectives on Digital Platforms on 16th February 2024. Dr Dal Yong Jin is a distinguished professor from the School of Communication at Simon Fraser University and an outstanding scholar in Korean pop culture, digital platforms, digital games, and the political economy of communication. In recognition of his contributions to advancing global media and the Korean Wave studies, he has recently been awarded the status of a fellow in the International Communication Association.

In his book talk, Dr Dal Yong Jin dove into the topic of AI convergence in cultural and media production, recent AI developments in popular culture, and the potential issues and ethical challenges in relation to artificial intelligence.

Dr Dal Yong Jin began the talk with his observations from the media. Global phenomena, such as Pokemon Go, Google’s DeepMind Challenge Match and the first AI news anchor from China, were all inspirations for Dr Dal Yong Jin to write this book. AI has become a quintessential part of various digital platforms, enabling not just the creation of cultural products but also the creation and distribution process. To paint a more comprehensive idea of the prevalence of AI in producing cultural content, Dr Dal Yong Jin listed a myriad of examples across different pillars of popular culture, namely digital gaming, music, films, and webtoon, to name but just a few. The first key takeaway of the book talk is the reflection on AI, big data and algorithm reliance on media consumption today. Dr Dal Yong Jin directed attention to AI’s usage on even the most minute detail on digital platforms, such as movie recommendations on Netflix, with the aid of its taste clusters. The extensive list of examples provided by the author highlighted the pervasiveness of artificial intelligence in our daily lives and called for more vigilant observation of our reliance on machine intelligence.

Another key takeaway is the discussion on adopting machine intelligence in the cultural industry and the AI divide between the Global North and Global South. With the aid of statistics, Dr Dal Yong Jin uncovered that the Global North, overall, had a higher reliance on AI, big data and algorithms in 2019. However, it was noticeable that countries in the Global South, such as China, Singapore, South Korea, and Japan, were catching up to the trend. This phenomenon begs the question: how is the Global South catching up now? Dr Dal Yong Jin shared the latest developments of AI in the cultural industry in Asia, reflecting its maturity over the past few years. For instance, AI technology can now aid in more than just writing scripts; it can also be combined with celebrity IP to create a pantheon of celebrities and other entertainment products. Gradually, synthetic intelligence has evolved from production partners to industry leaders.

One central theme throughout the book talk is the evergreen debate on the power relations of AI, cultural creators and consumers. A fundamental notion highlighted in the talk was whether AI reaped more benefits than harms; additionally, the contention over the lengths of the utilization of computer intelligence was discussed. Dr Dal Yong Jin concludes his talk by sharing his view on the current code of ethics using AI. “It is nowhere near being good enough (with the protection of intellectual property), but it’s a start.” Dr Dal Yong Jin sympathized with content creators and digital labor under the climate of AI.