Rethinking AI, Culture & Creativity | Oonagh Murphy, Arts Council England

Why are we using AI?

This episode of Technically Creative is brought to you by The Future of Life Insitute, an independent nonprofit working to steer transformative technologies toward benefiting humanity. https://futureoflife.org/

In this episode of Technically Creative, Orlando Wood sits down with Oonagh Murphy, Director of the Responsible AI Academy at Arts Council England, Senior Lecturer at Goldsmiths, University of London, and former Turing Fellow at the Alan Turing Institute, to explore what responsible AI actually looks like for artists, museums, cultural institutions and the creative industries.

As generative AI becomes embedded across creative work, Oonagh argues that organizations need to start with a deceptively simple question: not “How can we use AI?” but “Why would we use AI?”

That distinction opens up a much bigger conversation about AI ethics, copyright, intellectual property, data, trust, governance and the responsibility creative organizations have to the artists, audiences and communities they serve.

Oonagh explains why responsible AI governance can actually make organizations more effective, how Arts Council England developed its approach to AI policy, and why there is no single AI policy that every creative organization should simply copy. Responsible AI requires understanding your purpose, consulting the people affected, establishing your own red lines and making deliberate choices about where AI belongs.

The conversation also explores the unique role of arts and cultural institutions in the age of artificial intelligence. Museums, galleries, libraries and artists can provide spaces to slow technology down, question it, make its impact tangible and help society understand what AI means beyond the hype.

We explore:

• Why responsible AI starts with “why,” not “how”

• AI ethics and governance for creative organizations

• How Arts Council England developed its approach to artificial intelligence

• Why organizations need their own AI policies and ethical red lines