EXCLUSIVE: The BFI’s Innovation Challenge Fund has awarded £350,000 to Goldsmiths, University of London, to complete a research programme tasked with exploring the workforce impacts of AI.
The project is titled ACES: AI, Carbon, Equity, Skills, and, alongside the impacts of AI, will explore how convergent technologies will impact environmental sustainability, equity, diversity, and inclusion in the industry.
With funding, ACES will plan to support a UK-wide programme of workshops and co-design new toolkits, resources, and programmes to ensure that technology adoption in the production of film, TV, and digital entertainment is equitable, inclusive, and environmentally responsible.
Partners working with Goldsmiths to deliver ACES include the University of Edinburgh and Loughborough University, with not-for-profits Julie’s Bicycle and Sunderland Software City, and Deborah Williams OBE.
“Technology within the sector continues to evolve at pace, creating significant shifts for the industry,” Rishi Coupland, the BFI’s Executive Director of Industry Development and Innovation, said in a statement.”
“ACES seeks to give us the insights, knowledge, and tools to centre equity in the adoption of new technology and innovation. Focusing on environmental sustainability, equity, diversity, and inclusion, and the workforce impacts of AI, our ambition is to help the industry build a thriving, future-ready creative ecosystem.”
The BFI Innovation Fund supports not-for-profit organisations in the development of new approaches to challenges facing the industry. Previous funding recipients include the Creative Diversity Network and Design Otherwise CIC.
Jonathan Freeman, Professor of Psychology and Director at both CoSTAR Foresight and i2 Media Research at Goldsmiths, University of London, added: “My team’s focus in depth on mapping the future of workflows, markets, technologies, and audience impacts across the creative industries, with a deep focus on the screen, games, and performance sectors. To us, it is imperative that we focus on enabling the sector to imagine and realise positive futures – an AI that is supportive and not threatening to creatives, workplaces that are accessible to all, and leadership that sets and meets new norms on decarbonisation. Our new ACES project speaks directly to this positive goal.”
