The greatest theft or the greatest opportunity in human history?
- Stage
Date
Wed 20 May
Time
11:15 - 11:45 CEST
Location
Stage 5
About this session
Ancient and modern history is filled with the theft and looting of works of art, carried out in times of peace and war by bandits, thieves, and even entire armies. But perhaps the greatest theft in human history is now unfolding on the global stage before our very eyes. It spares no work born from human creativity: from literature to music, from drawing to photography, from cinema to animation, including software and video games. The perpetrators of this plunder — if plunder is indeed the right word — are the global giants of generative artificial intelligence, which for years have been dredging the digital ecosystem, copying every kind of content onto their servers without asking permission either from those who created it or from those who published it, and, of course, without paying a single euro. But is that really the case? Or is it simply a matter of perspective, and the opposite is true: are we witnessing a historic turning point for the creative industry and for the future of culture and information?
