K-pop bands using AI avatars to engage with fans around the clock. Art installations in Buenos Aires turning visitors’ brain signals into images in real time. A museum in Berlin using AI to let visitors talk with an artist who died eighty years ago… These are just a few examples of how AI is reaching into every corner of cultural creation and experience, all over the world.

To be sure, AI has been around in the creative sector for some twenty years now. But for most of that time, it operated in the final stages of the value chain, through the recommendation algorithms of social media, e-commerce sites and other platforms, which have long influenced our cultural choices.

The radical novelty of generative AI is that it is now transforming the earliest stages too, those of creation and production, so that its impact now extends across the entire cultural value chain.

For the cultural ecosystem, AI opens up enormous opportunities, such as augmented creativity, democratisation of creation, major productivity gains, an explosion of new content, and entirely new ways to engage with audiences. But the challenges are also numerous. To mention just a few, we should point to bias, hallucinations, the growing precarity of many creative professions, market concentration, copyright violations in AI training and a significant environmental footprint.

This is precisely where responsible AI comes into play. In broad terms, it involves seizing the opportunities AI offers to the full, while paying close attention to its risks. Ultimately, there can be no lasting innovation when it is blinded by the urge to move fast and lacks an ethical perspective from the very beginning. Initiatives that embrace technology without weighing its social and environmental consequences may enjoy a fleeting moment of brilliance but are unlikely to stand the test of time.

This ethical dimension is also linked to a deeper change driven by current technological trends. As machines become capable of performing cognitive tasks faster, and sometimes better, than humans, the very notion of value is being redefined, forcing us to rethink what is truly human. It is no coincidence, then, that the human qualities AI lacks are now becoming more valuable than ever. Building trust, being transparent, treating others fairly, embracing diversity, listening with empathy and working together in a spirit of mutual respect: these are not secondary concerns. They are the traits that will separate solid projects from fragile ones.

Responsibility, however, is not only about using AI with care. It also means playing a leading role in its evolution.At this critical moment, cultural organisations have far more power over the course of AI than they realise.

First of all, AI is often presented as a technology we simply have to adopt, as if it were a closed system over which we have no control. But in reality, AI is far more malleable than it is often portrayed, and no one is better placed than the creative community to mould it in original ways.

Moreover, technology owes far more to culture than we tend to think. Language itself offers a revealing clue. The word “artificial” literally means “made with art”. As for “robot”, it comes from R.U.R., a play by Karel Čapek: every time an engineer or programmer says “robot”, “bot” or “chatbot”, they are unknowingly paying tribute to a work of theatre written in 1920. Whether we realise it or not, today’s technologies rest on stories first
imagined by writers and artists. And if culture shaped the imaginaries of the present, it is also in a position to craft those of tomorrow.

All things considered, the creative sector must move beyond the passive adoption of AI and become an active force in shaping its future. We need a seat at the table, not simply to adapt to these technologies, but to help decide how they will be used across society.

And to achieve this, a common approach is essential.

In April 2026, the Global Creative Economy Council, a joint initiative of the British Council and Creative PEC, developed A Global AI Agenda for the Cultural and Creative Industries. Its goal is to encourage governments to create the conditions for cultural organisations and the entire creative ecosystem to harness AI responsibly, while ensuring that other stakeholders, including technology companies, also respect ethical principles.

The Agenda proposes 11 key actions, covering investment in AI skills, AI literacy, support for innovation and entrepreneurship, protection of intellectual property, cultural diversity and inclusion, human rights, digital infrastructure, environmental sustainability, research, local
collaboration and international cooperation.

The message is simple: culture and creativity must be part of national AI strategies, and the cultural sector must help set the rules of the game for a truly responsible AI.

On 24 November, I will have the pleasure of joining Oonagh Murphy for a conversation on Responsible AI: From Adoption to Agency at BEYOND Conference 2026. We will explore these and other related issues, with a particular focus on how we can turn principles into action without further delay.

Octavio Kulesz

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Octavio Kulesz is a philosopher and Director of Editorial Teseo, one of Latin America’s leading electronic publishing houses.

In 2020, he was selected by UNESCO, with 23 other international experts, to draft the text of the Recommendation on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence. Within the Global Creative Economy Council (GCEC), he led the drafting of the Global AI Agenda for the Cultural and Creative Industries, a strategic framework for addressing the opportunities and challenges posed by AI across the creative sectors.

This article featured in BEYOND Studio’s monthly newsletter, Creative Economy Digest, independently produced for those working at the intersection of culture, research, and emerging technologies. SUBSCRIBE

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