An underestimated partnership

04.12.2024

The cultural and creative industries are Germany's third most important sector. However, little is known about how strongly it influences industry and society. A look at developments in artificial intelligence shows that "KKW" is often one step ahead.

In recent years, the cultural and creative industries have produced many innovative ideas that are shaping the economy and society," is the matter-of-fact answer when ChatGPT is asked about the performance of the NPP. The chatbot then goes on to list five different areas of innovation, from virtual reality to the sharing economy and open source software to sustainability solutions, before concluding with the outlook: "In the future, innovation in the cultural and creative industries is likely to continue. New technologies and tools will be developed to facilitate creative work, while at the same time there will be a stronger focus on sustainability and social responsibility. The cultural and creative industries will continue to make an important contribution to the economy and society by creating jobs, preserving cultural heritage and having a positive impact on the common good." The AI behind the hyped chatbot therefore assigns the cultural and creative industries - or CCIs for short - an important role in the economy and society in terms of innovation. Oliver Wittmann, Head of the Bavarian Center for Cultural and Creative Industries (bayernkreativ), knows about the potential of "his" industry:

And new scope is indeed opening up: The range of AI-supported tools for creative work is now huge. This can be seen on platforms for AI-based tools such as Futurepedia. It lists almost 50 categories with more than 1,200 AI tools, including tools for the creation of images, music, literature or interior design as well as for advertising and e-commerce, but also for sales, customer support, finance and HR. With these tools, all process steps in the value chain, including the activities upstream and downstream of creative production, could be supported, supplemented or even (almost) completely taken over by AI instruments in the future. However, not all of these AI tools are yet fully developed. What is interesting, however, is that they don't have to be. Most tools are constantly being developed further and their use is already making a lot of work easier. Some creative professionals use chatbots and have texts ejected, which then become the basis for further text production. "For me, ChatGPT is an exciting sparring partner that can help to create marketing content that is relevant to the target group effectively, in high quality and with the right tone of voice," says Augsburg-based copywriter Birgitta Reitschuster, describing her experience. "With a well thought-out concept, working with workflows and intelligent input commands, we are on the right track." The experts at bayernkreativ are certain that chatbots such as ChatGPT may not provide exhaustive answers, but they can present diverse and highly complex contexts in an understandable way. The results are so impressive because they not only explain causalities, but also grasp subtle contexts. In this way, they strike at the very heart of NPP, because they create access to the complexity of today's world. AI is now opening up a space that is particularly relevant as a field of activity for cultural and creative professionals: capturing the world not in black and white schemes. Text-to-image generators can create digital images from just a few terms, for example in different styles. The pop art-style image series presented here were created using the "Stable Diffusion" tool developed in Munich. 01/2023 networked 67 The Bavarian cultural and creative industries in figures (2018): Employees: 340,000 (4.1% of the Bavarian economy as a whole) Companies and self-employed persons: approx. 47.700 Turnover: 38.2 billion euros Gross value added: 20.7 billion euros (value added contribution of 3.7% to the overall Bavarian economy) Ranking turnover: 3rd place behind the automotive and mechanical engineering industries, but ahead of the healthcare industry Ranking gross value added: 2nd place behind the automotive industry and ahead of the mechanical engineering and healthcare industries, but to present them in their contradictory diversity and make them understandable. This is precisely what can make it so interesting to (co-)develop innovations from the NPP.

Operational despite imperfection

The fact that current AI tools do not bring fully finished products to the market is exciting in many respects, but also a challenge: AI tools are already ready-to-use in their imperfection in many cases, are used and are constantly developed further through daily use, depending on the learning mode of the AI. Research also uses these processes: University research and application by users happen simultaneously in many places - and thus also cross-fertilize each other. One AI tool in the cultural sector that is already being used in the creative process, but is still being researched, is stable diffusion. The text-to-image generator developed at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München is now used worldwide. The "Computer Vision & Learning" working group led by Prof. Björn Ommer has written and trained the algorithm, which can generate images from short pieces of text. The software was deliberately published as open source under a "CreativeML Open RAIL-M License", on the one hand to further train the AI, and on the other to put research on it and its application on a broader footing. "I was concerned that a few companies were holding a technology in their hands that is highly relevant to our society," says Prof. Ommer, describing his motivation, and continues

Text-to-image software such as Stable Diffusion or Dall-E may not yet work perfectly, but in the near future it will generate images that could revolutionize time-consuming photo productions in fashion, illustrations and image material for catalogs and web stores. Artistic production can also be supported by AI using text-to-image generators such as Stable Diffusion: Models and ideas can be tested more quickly, aesthetic worlds of color and form can be tried out - even by non-professionals. AI can support the process of value creation directly in the creation phase. Human and artificial creative power interact directly: A human thinks up the image requests - the computer provides different possible image worlds.

Self-playing wing

The relationship between artificial and human creativity is also a subject of research in the field of music. In the "Spirio Sessions" project, scientists from the Nuremberg University of Music and the Competence Center for Artificial Intelligence (KIZ) at Nuremberg Institute of Technology are researching the interplay between AI and human creativity. During the joint jazz improvisation, different systems will be trained with machine learning to play live with jazz musicians. The focus is on the self-playing grand piano "Spirio R", an analog-digital instrument. The aim of the project is to provide data-based insights into the creative processes involved in music interpretation. However, it also raises larger questions, such as the nature of human creativity.

Project leader Prof. Dr. Korbinian Riedhammer sees a particular appeal in this interplay between music and AI: "We are working on a complex interactive setting where time series analysis and deep learning are to merge with artistic freedom and expressiveness. This joint journey of discovery sharpens our interdisciplinary skills." Last but not least, Prof. Riedhammer and his team hope to gain insights that can also be transferred to other fields and applications, such as medicine. The LEONARDO Center in Nuremberg, where the project is taking place, is the central hub for bringing other university research areas into this project. So is the NPP a driver of innovation? Oliver Wittmann is certain: