Thanks very much to the team at BookNet Canada for inviting me to speak at their Tech Forum webinar this evening on the elements of a balanced and ethical AI strategy for publishers. It’s hard to do justice to such an expansive topic in a forty minute presentation, but I discussed a number of key aspects including the pace of change and capability overhang in AI, copyright and Fair Use, accuracy, provenance, the environmental impact of AI and its increasing integration with all elements of the publishing application stack.

There is a tension between concerns over these issues and the productivity benefits that publishers can get from AI: on the latter point, I also gave examples of successful use cases from the last year. That tension came through in the questions from a large and engaged audience. The challenge is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach: publishing is a highly diverse sector in terms of size, age and type of organisation. Every publisher needs to consider its context, content, culture and capabilities in thinking through the impact and benefits of AI. If the presentation did not—in fact, could not—give definitive answers, I hope it posed some useful questions for attendees to take back to their organisations and consider.

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