With AI’s ability to automatically produce content and process complicated datasets with high accuracy, museums worldwide are exploring ways in which this innovative technology can help them better achieve their missions and advance accessibility efforts. Through case studies, learn about three applications of this technology: content digitalization, language accessibility, and visual description.
October was filled with new debates on AI policies, a halt to one of the most significant AI safety bills in the United States, and a host of new AI developments in video, music, and even podcasts.
Arts and cultural nonprofits often operate in multiple markets for earned and contributed revenue. With increasing attention on data-driven decision making, effective market orientation often depends on effective data use. This fundamental collection, transmission, use, and interpretation of data within an organization collectively contributes to what can be considered an organization’s data culture.
Museums have increasingly begun to volunteer their spaces as polling places, acting as a democratic vehicle for their communities and adding to the greater fabric of America’s election infrastructure. In doing so, they can support local democratic processes and prove to their communities that they are not unbreachable temples for the elite, but open platforms for the people.
As exemplified by the Hollywood strikes of 2023, we find ourselves in a new era of Artificial Intelligence in film and television. While studios are looking to cut costs, performers seek job security, and consumers seek quality content. Through research conducted in collaboration with facial motion capture technology provider Faceware Technologies Inc., Master of Entertainment Industry Management students at Carnegie Mellon sought to gain insight on how AI-generated content will transform existing industries, including how this technology could affect employment in the entertainment industry, content development, budgets, contracts, legislation, and privacy rights.
National Endowment for the Arts
Exciting to many, distressing to some – digital media continues to hold the largest share of arts participation, and platforms are finding new ways to engage with online audiences. As new trends emerge, creators across disciplines are advocating and winning fair compensation and increased protection of their work. From SAG-AFTRA to regional theatre, contracts with creators are offering greater rewards for digital content and protections for current and future AI.
Budget season is upon us. There may be no more exciting time of the year, if you are like me and revel in the workings of
our federal government and how policy gets made. Even though Congress is perhaps not the most popular body of work these days (and that may be an understatement), the budgetary season is important because it tends to set the tone for the policy and political arguments for the rest of the year, and in an election year like this one, it becomes even more so.
President Obama’s 2013 budget request, released last Monday, contained spending cuts across dozens of federal agencies, including the armed services, health care, and energy. But one area, accustomed to cuts in recent years, received a welcome surprise this year, seeing their funding request increase from 2012: the arts community.
The president’s budget, which clocked in at about $3.7 trillion dollars, included a request of $154.255 million for the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), which is a slight increase of about $8 million from the funding that the NEA received this year. While still lower than the funding NEA received in 2010 ($167.5 million), it is a step in the right direction.
As the New York Times reported, included in the increase is about $4 million that would go directly to non-profit arts organizations and another $2.7 million for state and regional arts organizations.
As many in the arts community are well aware, the NEA serves a critical role in supporting artists and arts programs around the country. The vast majority of its annual budget goes towards grants that support artists in the communities of music, art, photography, theater, literature, and more. Just as important are the group’s efforts in art education, educating and introducing children to the wonders of the arts.
Not only are the group’s efforts vital to the artistic community; they also help create jobs and boost the economy in a tough economic climate. As NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman said last week, “A dollar invested directly through the NEA is matched by $8 in additional investment and generates $26 of economic activity in the community. In short, art works.”
Now when I say “budget request,” it is specifically that: the President is required by law every year to submit his budget request to Congress. This document is not law, but merely the budget that the president would like to see. It’s more of a wish list, or set of funding appropriation requests, that the president would like to see fulfilled. It is up to Congress to pass appropriations bills for each federal department and send them to the president for approval.
(If you’re interested in hearing me talk about the budget more in-depth, I appeared on the Carnegie Mellon radio program “Policy that Matters” last week to talk about the president’s proposal, and it is now available online.)
The important thing to remember about budgets is they set forth priorities. They help set the president’s agenda and represent a list of what he believes is worthy of investment. The commitment to the NEA, even though the funding increase is minor, represents a commitment to improving the lives of artists everywhere. In a tough economic climate, this commitment has never been more important for the arts community.
I last wrote about protecting federal funding for the arts this past October, and while the president’s budget is an encouraging sign, the calls for budget cuts and austerity measures continue in Washington. There is certainly still a chance that funding for the NEA may decrease when the budgetary bills are passed by Congress later this year.
There are certainly more pressing budgetary topics in the news, and the amount dedicated to NEA is a very small percentage of the overall budget. But for the artistic community, and for those who depend on the programs NEA supports, they remain a vital part of our American psyche and play a huge role in advancing the joys and benefits of the arts. In tough economic times however, and calls for budget austerity by some, there will be an incentive to decrease the budget in as many areas as possible.
The arts are as deserving as ever of our continued commitment to support the NEA and the causes it advances. Seeing the increased budgetary request for the endowment is a welcome sign. Even though it seems like Congress can agree on nothing these days, it is surely our hope that the continued support of NEA and arts programs everywhere will be one area where all sides can agree.
In Washington, an era of budget austerity and renewed calls for less government spending have led to increased fears that the arts, long protected from budget cuts, will see its federal funding further decreased for the coming fiscal year.
While Congress has passed several temporary budget measures this year, the most recent continuing resolution ends on November 18th, when the government is set to run out of money. Under the terms of the recent debt-ceiling deal reached by both parties, Congress has committed to cutting $21 billion in spending from the Fiscal Year 2012 budget, and it is widely expected that the bulk of these cuts will come from what’s referred to as “non-defense discretionary spending,” which includes areas such as education, infrastructure, and most pertinent to our community, the arts.
The arts community went through a similar struggle last year, when the National Endowment for the Arts saw its Fiscal Year 2011 funding reduced to $155 million, a $13 million reduction from the year before. For the upcoming fiscal year, the numbers look even worse: a bill passed by the House of Representatives in July would further cut FY2012 NEA funding to $135 million, which would represent a 13 percent decrease and the deepest cut to the agency in 16 years.
Despite the FY2012 budget being due next month, there is still a long way to go. President Obama has requested in his FY2012 budget proposal that the NEA be funded at $146 million, which represents a cut from the FY2011 figures, but is less severe than the House version that was passed in July.
With Congress returning to session this week, it’s important for us in the arts community to use technology to reach out to our members of Congress and ask them to support funding for the arts. There are a number of easy ways you can do this:
This isn’t the first time you’ve heard from Technology in the Arts about lobbying Congress to protect arts funding, and given the current political climate, it certainly won’t be the last. This is not a partisan issue, but is instead an issue that unites all of us who are passionate about the arts community and protecting funding for the next generation of artists and performers.
While the long-term budget deficit is something that we can all agree needs to be dealt with, doing so on the backs of such groups as the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities will only serve to further decimate arts education programs at the state and local levels that have already endured painful budget cuts in recent years.
In the newfound era of budget austerity in Washington, any assumptions we had about federal arts funding being kept at past levels are gone. In order to protect the future of arts funding, the fight starts now.
(Photo: CC by kevin dooley)
