Aspirations vs. the reality of diversity progression in media production proved to be an indispensable conversation at Soho Media Club and Outernet London’s collaborative event, BE YOU Festival which took place in London this month, reports Sheryl Hickey.
The BE YOU Festival covered challenges and successes in D&I across the industry, through breakaway sessions, new talent advice, tech sessions, Q&A’s, wellbeing workshops, and a presentation on the IBC Accelerators from an R&D perspective: How Inclusion & Accessibility come first in Innovation.
Audiences and speakers also debated the cardinal topic of generative AI, is it an existential threat to creativity and jobs, or just a novel plaything? In a talk on AI bias in data sets – i.e. AI being a reflection of our own bias in terms of our own images, proved that we are still a long way off an accurate reflection of society. Sarah Beranek, Automatic Speech Recognition/Machine Learning Scientist at AppTek advised it’s time to “embrace and try out AI – it’s not going away – we’re just at the beginning.”...
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