AI4Creatives Support Platform: embracing a fair AI revolution

Expected Outcome: Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes: The cultural and creative sectors and industries (CCSI) have access to a dedicated European virtual AI support platform. This hub will facilitate collaboration among a strong and open network of CCSI networks, professionals, researchers, AI tech companies, creative startups, ethical AI experts, rights management infrastructures, other industries with a shared interest in the field of AI for culture and creativity and a focus on research and innovation. The AI4Creatives Support Platform provides easy access to shared services, expertise, capacity building, training, and tools needed to design, develop and adopt AI solutions tailored to cultural and creative processes and needs, enhancing innovation and competitiveness. Filling a gap, the platform enables the development and sharing of AI applications that adhere to EU values, principles and regulations, implementing transparency, ethical standards, promoting cultural diversity, addressing biases, and ensuring equitable access to culture and creativity. Scope: This topic addresses the pressing need to coordinate, support, disseminate and capitalise on relevant outcomes from Horizon Europe Cluster 2-funded projects aimed to equip CCSI to leverage the digital transformation, from other relevant Horizon Europe projects, and from initiatives exploring AI in relation to CCSI under other EU programmes, such as the AI Continent Action Plan, (including AI Factories, GenAI4EU, Apply AI and the envisaged AI strategy for cultural and creative sectors and industries), AI Innovation package, and others. The aim is maximising their impact and driving innovation and competitiveness. AI offers significant opportunities for CCSI, but challenges persist, including skill gaps, limited interaction with technology partners, structural weaknesses of CCSI, mostly small and micro enterprises with weak bargaining power against big tech providers, and limited resources to train dedicated AI models. Other challenges relate to AI ethics, transparency and intellectual property rights, including copyright. By transcending siloed approaches and establishing synergies, CCSI can take advantage of economies of scale, harness AI's potential and drive innovation. The goal is establishing a permanent, networked reference point for CCSI through a virtual support platform that builds capacity and facilitates networking and collaboration among CCSI, stakeholders, researchers, technology developers, AI ethicists, and other industries and startups, with the overall aim to enable artists, cultural professionals, creative companies and cultural organisations to engage with AI, including dealing with biases and risks. The Support Platform is expected to enable the CCSI to access and utilize available custom-made tools, quality data, resources, knowledge, training, and AI applications aligned with their specific needs and with EU principles and regulations, thus easing the adoption of appropriate innovative ethical solutions and approaches tailored to the CCSI. Among the possible functions of the Support Platform should be: Disseminate or develop frameworks, standards, best practices, and toolkits serving as strategic guidance for integrating ethical AI into CCSI value chains. Facilitate cross-sector collaboration, synergies, and partnerships between CCSI professionals, AI tech companies, and startups, liaising with initiatives like the European Collaborative Cloud for Cultural Heritage (ECCCH), AI Factories, research infrastructures on cultural heritage and digital humanities, European Digital Innovation Hubs, ALT EDIC and LLMs4EU, Common European Data Space for Cultural heritage and other data spaces, and other EU initiatives in this area. Build and develop a solid copyright infrastructure to support the use and licensing of copyright-protected content in the context of AI. Suggest education and training frameworks and provide training... Source: EU Funding & Tenders Portal (CC BY 4.0).