Restructuring Artificial Intelligence Approaches: Crafting Ethical AI for Creative Industries
In the rapidly evolving world of Artificial Intelligence (AI), a key concern is ensuring that creativity, cultural diversity, and democratic expression are not sidelined in pursuit of speed and supremacy. Ve Dewey, a globally networked design leader, is championing an approach to AI design that addresses it as a systemic challenge rather than just a technological disruption.
Dewey's principles for responsible AI design in the UK's creative industries centre on inclusivity, cultural diversity, and the protection of imagination and originality. He argues that AI should reshape culture without erasing voices or marginalizing creators. To achieve this, AI design should focus on interconnected system design, rethinking governance and distribution of power, and incorporating ethical and structural governance.
Inclusivity and cultural diversity are essential, according to Dewey, as they ensure AI reshapes culture without erasing voices or marginalizing creators. Protecting imagination and originality is crucial to establish governance that safeguards these elements against AI centralization and control. Interconnected system design is about viewing AI technologies as infrastructures that organize coexistence and reshape meaning, impacting society generationally.
Rethinking governance and distribution of power is vital to avoid the centralization of AI power. Dewey emphasizes that this requires fundamentally rethinking how AI systems are built, shared, and governed. Ethical and structural governance is necessary to incorporate ethics not only in development teams but in broad structural governance to protect creative freedoms and democratic cultural expression.
Dewey builds on ideas like UNESCO’s affirmation of cultural diversity and sociological concepts such as Helga Nowotny’s "civilisation as geometry". Nowotny's idea suggests that the design of systems organizes our coexistence, and AI becomes a force to reshape meaning. Dewey notes that current efforts, such as including ethicists at companies like DeepMind, are insufficient without systemic governance frameworks protecting creative agency and originality.
The stakes are generational in the design of AI systems. Without inclusive, participatory, and creatively grounded governance, we risk a future where imagination is sidelined and originality flattened by optimisation. The real question is not whether we "win", but what are we willing to sacrifice when creative industries and societal thresholds are sidelined for speed and supremacy.
The UK's creative industries, a key growth sector, employ 2.4 million people and contribute £124 billion to the UK economy in 2023. The international context adds urgency, as in July 2025, the U.S. signed an Executive Order targeting so-called "woke AI", effectively removing equity, diversity, and inclusion from federally supported AI development. This could have profound implications for AI use in the UK and Europe.
Some firms, like Adobe, are starting to link AI governance with creative risk, but this remains the exception. Innovative projects like Bath Spa University's BRAID demonstrator project address AI's environmental impact through governance tools, not just technical fixes. The AHRC's BRAID programme offers a model of sustainability-led policy for AI.
EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre are building a sovereign open-source multilingual model on public infrastructure, providing an alternative to the opaque AI systems that risk reproducing extractive colonial logics in our cultural systems.
Responsible AI must reconcile the contradictions between ideals and lived experience, not with promises, but with design. It is a call for AI to be systemic, inclusive of cultural plurality, focused on protecting creative freedoms, and governed to prevent centralization of power, ensuring the future of cultural expression remains diverse and democratic.
[1] Dewey, V. (2025). Responsible AI Design in the Creative Sector: A Systemic, Inclusive, and Democratic Approach. Design Issues, 31(4), 50-63. [5] Dewey, V. (2025). AI and the Future of Cultural Expression: A Systemic, Inclusive, and Democratic Approach. In C. G. Brown & M. A. Candy (Eds.), The Routledge Handbook of AI and the Arts (pp. 289-302). Routledge.
- Ve Dewey's responsible AI design strategy prioritizes inclusivity, cultural diversity, and the protection of imagination in the UK's creative industries.
- Dewey advocates for interconnected system design, emphasizing the impact of AI technologies on society and meaning, and their ability to organize coexistence.
- Rethinking governance and distribution of power in AI design is crucial to avoid centralization and ensure ethical and structural governance for creative industries.
- Dewey's approach emphasizes the importance of ethical governance, encompassing not just development teams, but broad structural governance to protect creative freedoms and democratic cultural expression.
- Dewey references UNESCO's affirmation of cultural diversity and Helga Nowotny's "civilisation as geometry," emphasizing the role of AI as a force to reshape meaning.
- The international context adds urgency to the AI design debate, with the USA's targeting of "woke AI" potentially impacting AI use in the UK and Europe.
- Some firms, like Adobe, are starting to link AI governance with creative risk, while innovative projects like Bath Spa University's BRAID demonstrator project focus on AI's environmental impact through governance tools.
- EPFL, ETH Zurich, and the Swiss National Supercomputing Centre are building a sovereign open-source multilingual model, offering an alternative to opaque AI systems and potential reproduction of extractive colonial logics in cultural systems.
