The Salzburg Statement on Artists Shaping Ethical AI Futures
In a polarized, inequitable, and complex world, artists and cultural leaders play a crucial role in pushing the boundaries of how we understand ourselves and the world around us. As AI technologies play an ever greater role in our societies, artists must be actively engaged in informing, testing, and shaping the creation, use, and limits of AI and, thereby, the impacts it will have on humanity. The myriad tools, processes, and practices beneath the AI umbrella have the potential to contribute to a more sustainable, just, and equitable world in which all life flourishes; however, realizing this vision requires intentionality about how those tools and practices evolve today.
Challenges of AI in the Arts, Culture, and Creative Sector
AI has an unprecedented cultural and economic impact on the creative sector. With large language models (LLM) becoming ubiquitous, anyone can easily produce a realistic photograph, text, or code at the click of a button. Although the history of AI is much broader than generative AI models, the widespread implementation of these models today has refueled the conversation around the impact that AI is having and will have, on aesthetic, creative, and artistic output.
Developed by scraping data predominantly from Western data sets, LLMs have the potential to create an aesthetic that resembles plasticity and presents Western standardized references as the norm. Thus, homogenized narratives perpetuated by AI systems threaten the diversity of global human cultures. In contrast, standardized AI systems for producing texts and images endanger our cognitive rights and creative and critical thinking.
The latest technological developments also impact the labor market in various ways, including by threatening the integrity of jobs for creative professionals such as illustrators, copywriters, artists, and graphic designers and by relying heavily on the often invisible labor of „ghost workers“ from the Global South who perform crucial tasks like data labeling, classification, and moderation. Despite their essential contributions to training and refining AI systems, these workers are frequently paid meager wages and work under precarious conditions with little job security or recognition.
An Invitation to Action
We stand in solidarity with all creative worker movements and encourage all those involved in the arts and culture sector to join our mission of self-advocacy in policy spaces to ensure that AI practices, processes, and principles are developed and applied in a way that is beneficial for all.
CONSIDERATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
We include the following eight pillars as considerations and reflections in order of priority:
Ethical Principles: The profound influence of AI on culture, creativity, critical thinking, intelligences, and the broader creative sector necessitates a robust ethical framework to guide AI‘s development, integration, and use. This framework should emphasize principles that ensure AI technologies promote human, ecological, societal, environmental, and global well-being now and into the future. We call for the safeguarding of human autonomy, fairness, and inclusivity in AI, advocating for a diverse range of perspectives in decision-making processes and ensuring it does no harm. We underscore the importance of protecting cultural diversity, multiple intelligences, and anti-homogeneity while supporting grassroots initiatives, ensuring equitable access to AI benefits, increasing transparency on when and how AI is used, and enabling users to opt in and out of all aspects. By fostering continuous collaboration among stakeholders and enhancing AI understanding and literacy, ethical principles aim to mitigate potential risks, address ethical challenges, and harness AI‘s potential for creativity, critical thinking, and cultural enrichment and preservation. By bridging divides and expanding collaboration, we can ensure that AI becomes a tool for positive impact rather than a source of displacement and homogenization. See more in The Charter for AI Ethics.
Decolonial Approaches: We emphasize the importance of integrating Indigenous knowledge systems and perspectives into AI systems to challenge colonial narratives. We call for a move beyond superficial DEI goals to establish long-term, reciprocal relationships with Indigenous communities based on respect and shared power. Those developing AI models should respect Indigenous data sovereignty, support community-led processes, and commit to sustained, meaningful engagement that generates transformative benefits. This approach aims to create an inclusive AI landscape enriched by diverse worldviews and epistemologies.
AI Literacy: This refers to “the critical understanding and knowledge of artificial intelligence concepts, principles, and applications from diverse, inclusive, intercultural perspectives. It involves being able to comprehend how AI technologies work, their impact on society, (environment, cultural, political, economic, social, historical, spiritual practices, etc.), and how to use them responsibly with basic competencies and skills”, as detailed in the AI Literacy Curriculum. This includes conceptual understanding, technical skills, ethical considerations, societal impact, critical thinking, creative application, communication, and continuous learning and development.
Data Sovereignty: Cultural organizations need to consider what it means to own and protect artistic works, what legal structures are needed, what we can leverage, and how we can ensure these benefits are shared. There should be a particular focus on the governance of Indigenous data ownership, including for future generations, and the cultural copyright of people’s genealogy.
Participation: Artists, especially independent ones and those from the global majority, deserve a seat at the table. Power must be shared to ensure diverse perspectives in AI development.
Recognition of the AI Value Chain: Organizations should be aware of the multiple steps involved in the AI process, including the intention, data, algorithm, computing, and model as detailed in the Intercultural AI Creative Starter Pack and the UNESCO Recommendation on the Ethics of AI
Protection: Grassroots projects that formalize artists’ perspectives on AI such as games, resources, and community meetups should be supported by government funders and arts councils in their development, market entry, operation, and adherence to regulatory requirements to ensure their continuity.
Leadership of Technology Development: Organizations involved in AI development, deployment, or implementation should recognize leadership as a process of creating positive change, rather than just a position of authority. Effective leadership by those developing technology is essential to ensure AI enhances and enriches the human experience.
CALL TO ACTION
We include the following calls to action for different groups in order of urgency.
We call on all people to:
• Do No Harm. Prioritize human and living systems’ safety, well-being, and fairness in the development and usage of AI systems.
• Be mindful of the ecological and material impact of technologies.
• Challenge the vertical hierarchies present in technocapitalist societies, including current social structures and impositions of power.
We call on governments and policymakers to:
• Develop regulations ensuring AI developments are inclusive and fair, and amplify voices of systematically disadvantaged groups, ensuring that artists and creators are acknowledged and fairly compensated for their works used in training AI systems.
• Develop accessible academic and non-academic education on AI to ensure that everyone has a solid grounding in the ever-evolving development of these technologies, including a broader understanding of the resources that go into AI, from dataset-making and training AI models to the natural resources needed to sustain them.
• Require that technology companies and developers be transparent about their data sources and specify the human and natural resources used. Provide the option for people to opt out of data sets.
• Safeguard human autonomy by establishing a global public interest technology council to develop a global stance on AI regulation, addressing the current lack of enforcement by both global and national authorities.
• Foster continuous collaboration between stakeholders from creative industries, technology developers, policy, education, advocacy, and media fields to ensure AI development meets the needs of everyone.
We call on technology companies and developers to:
• Develop mechanisms to address bias and discrimination in existing and future AI systems.
• Ensure anti-homogeneity of AI systems by prioritizing open-source and access. This openness allows developers, artists, and researchers to experiment with and build upon the model, fostering innovation and broader applications in various fields.
• Be proactive in ensuring the views of artists and diverse global communities are incorporated at all stages of the AI research and development process.
• Ensure transparency about their data sources and the human and natural resources used.
• Provide people with the option to opt out of data sets.
We call on artists, cultural producers, and cultural institutions to:
• Engage actively in policy discussions about AI to ensure their perspectives are included.
• Advocate for AI development that will empower rather than replace artistic practice and cultural production, ensuring creative professionals are at the center of the discussions.
• Educate themselves on the resource, human, and environmental implications of using AI in their work.
• Promote AI literacy and critical thinking about technology‘s impact on culture and society.
We call on NGOs and civil society to:
• Raise awareness through educational resources, presenting current issues related to AI and agency, trust, and attribution.
• Support grassroots initiatives that promote ethical AI practices and integrate leadership training into their AI strategies to promote technology that serves humanity‘s best interests.
• Develop regulations, frameworks, and systems for accountability and transparency in governance.
