The challenges around AI involve human values, fair distribution, and externalities.

“These three questions need to be addressed,” Minos Bantourakis, head of media/entertainment/sport industry at the Switzerland-based World Economic Forum, told attendees at the recent INMA World Congress of News Media.

• On human values: “These technologies touch the cognition sphere, the sense of what we do, how we do it, can touch the sense of meaning for us as humans. Our work being automated, our work being substituted, are just examples.”
• On fair distribution: “Who is going to extract this value? Who is going to get the gain?”
• On externalities: “The economic super cycle generates growth — climate, societies, humans. How do we make sure the negative impacts are addressed?”

Bantourakis revisited the four industrial revolutions in his presentation about the current one: steel, electricity, electronics/Internet, and (currently) digital/physical systems.

“All of them were fueled and powered by one technology that had the power to disrupt and that was electronics,” Bantourakis said.

This one is different because of two factors: speed and scale.  

On speed, it took Netflix 3.5 years to reach 1 million years. It took ChatGPT five days.

On scale, the new digital/physical systems have reached so many areas: from AI to robotics to nanotech reaching industries like pharma, finance, and media.

AI’s potential impact on the global economy is US$17-US$26 trillion annually, he said. 

“From the high tech and first applications, the first development is still a long way to the actual impact,” he said. “AI is much more grounded in real opportunities vs other tech hypes.”

There usually are two perspectives when it comes to tech, Bantourakis said:

• Tech determines the future (can’t be stopped, humans have no control and must cope with it).

• Tech is value neutral (a tool humans can do whatever they want with).

“Both lack this possible truth: Tech and society are strongly connected, interwoven in a way they cannot be unpacked,” he said. “We call it human agency that comes into place. Humans need to stay at the center of how tech gets developed. They need to be in control as much as possible. This technology has the ability to disrupt the industry and that’s something we need to look at with care.”

Bantourakis said he sees these opportunities for the media industry:

• Enhanced creative process (with idea generation, keeping humans in the center).

• Increased productivity (workflow automation).

• Better connection with audiences (translation of insights with actionable strategies executed at scale).

And he sees these emerging challenges: 

• Climate risks.

• Disruption of the global economy and business models.

• One-third of workforce tasks are being reshaped in media/entertainment/sports.

With all of this in mind, media companies are working on five guiding principles for this new era: adopting principles for the creation of quality and trustworthy content, being open to innovation and responsible adoption of GenAI, empowering consumers through transparency, becoming more accountable through common standards, fostering ethical leadership and upskilling the workforce.

“We all stay stronger if we take a collaborative approach to disruptive revolutions,” he said.

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