S4E10: The responsible adoption of AI... Rob Cawston, Director of Digital and Service Transformation, National Library of Scotland
Guest
Rob Cawston
In conversation with
Hilary Knight
Our host, Hilary Knight speaks to Rob Cawston, Director of Digital and Service Transformation, National Library of Scotland on how the NLS is taking an ethical stance on the use of AI and how this work is tied to its mission and values.
Date of Recording
12 September 2024
Date of Publication
26 September 2024
[00:00:00]
Rob Cawston: We want to be responsible in our approach to AI. We want to tie in with our mission and values. And we want to kind of adopt an ethical kind of stance, really setting out our approach as the National Library of Scotland to what we've called the “responsible adoption” of AI.
[00:00:18]
[THEME MUSIC]
[00:00:23]
Hilary Knight: Hello and welcome to The Three Bells. This podcast is one of a series brought to you by AEA Consulting for the Global Cultural Districts Network, in which we explore what's happening around the world on those busy and sometimes congested intersections of cultural and urban life.
The series and supporting materials can be found at www.thethreebells.net. If you like our content, please subscribe and review us on your podcast listening platform of choice.
My name is Hilary Knight and I'm a Senior Consultant with AEA Consulting. My guest today is Rob Cawston, the Director of Digital and Service Transformation at the National Library of Scotland.
When I first met Rob, he was Head of Digital at National Museums Scotland, and looking at innovative ways to engage audiences digitally around the collections and museum experience. He's been working in and managing digital programmes and strategies in the arts and culture sector for about two decades now, including at the Scottish Government, The Royal Institution, BAFTA, and Chatham House.
It's the work he's doing in his current new-ish role at the National Library that I'm interested in today, because I want to talk about AI policies in the arts and culture sector.
AI has been a technology in development in the background for years. But it wasn't until OpenAI released ChatGPT to the public in 2022, that the understanding of what AI – specifically generative AI could do, really ignited in the public consciousness.
[00:01:44]
Hilary Knight: Since then, the technology has continued to evolve at unprecedented speed and is forcing virtually every industry to tackle hard questions about the future of work and creativity.
We know about the debates and tensions within the creative industries around the uses, abuses, benefits, and risks of AI. You can see these clearly in the contrasts between technologists and businesses experimenting with generative AI to drive efficiencies in the workplace, and the writers and artists concerned about the risks AI pose to their IP and future employment.
And this was seen most starkly in the writers’ strikes, the SAG-AFTRA strikes in the U.S. in 2023. And that, as well, compounded by growing unease about generative AI's unreliability and tendency to hallucinate and reproduce the social prejudices, racisms, and biases from the worst parts of the internet.
Now, wherever you or your organisation sit in that debate between pro and anti and, you know, maybe somewhere ambivalently in between, we can probably all agree that AI feels like it's everything, everywhere, all at once. And the creative industries haven't developed consistent AI policies and best practices yet.
So, in all this turbulence, how do we move forward?
Well, the answer from much of the sector so far seems to be – carefully. One early mover was the Smithsonian who in Spring 2022 released their AI Values Statement, which they followed up in October last year with a paper describing their approach to developing responsible AI practices at the institution.
I'm really interested in how statements like these are approached and developed in a context like the one we're in today. And that brings me back to Rob.
This summer, the National Library of Scotland released an AI statement that outlines the values-based approach they will take to the responsible adoption and use of artificial intelligence in their organisation.
And I am delighted that Rob has agreed to join us today so we can hear more.
Hello Rob, and welcome to The Three Bells.
[00:03:40]
Rob Cawston: Hello!
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About Our Guests
Rob Cawston is the Director of Digital and Service Transformation at the National Library of Scotland and has previously managed digital programmes at the Scottish Government, National Museums Scotland, the Royal Institution, BAFTA and Chatham House +
