COMP90087 · The Ethics of Artificial Intelligence
AI Ethics and the Creative Economies
Week 6 is the in-class-essay week: there is no new theory lecture, but this module’s content on generative AI in the creative industries is examinable. It applies the Weeks 1–5 toolkit to authorship and intellectual property, labour displacement, authenticity and concentrated platform power, using four orienting questions — who created the original work, who benefits, who is harmed, was consent given. Treat it as a bridge that previews the accountability, transparency, bias and governance weeks.
What this chapter covers
- 01Creative economy — economic activity using creative talent for commercial purposes; art tied to human authorship, expression and recognition
- 02Core tensions when generative AI meets creative industries: authorship and intellectual property, labour displacement, authenticity and voice, platform power
- 03The four orienting questions: who created the original work? who benefits from the AI? who might be harmed? was consent given?
- 04A stakeholder-and-consent scan as a reusable method for any creative-AI case
- 05Concentration of platform power and “platform economy” dynamics / asymmetry of value creation
- 06The Week-6 closed-book in-class essay draws on Weeks 1–5 theory applied to a scenario
- 07Links forward to accountability (W7), transparency (W8), bias/equity (W9) and data governance (W10)
Run the four orienting questions on a generative-AI creative case
- +1Who created the original work? The session musicians whose recordings are the training data — their authorship and intellectual property are the input the model depends on, which raises the IP/authorship tension the module foregrounds.
- +1Who benefits? The platform (new sellable product, lower costs) and the creators who buy cheap tracks — note the asymmetry of value creation, where the platform captures most of the value the musicians’ work generated (previews platform-power and W7 power/accountability).
- +1Who might be harmed? The session musicians, through labour displacement and loss of licensing income, and audiences, through eroded authenticity/voice — concrete harms you can weigh with any of the three theories.
- +1Was consent given? No separate consent was sought for training on their recordings — a Kantian “merely as means” red flag and a data-governance/consent question that previews W10; a full answer names the missing consent as the decisive wrong.
Key terms
- Creative economy
- Economic activity that uses creative talent for commercial purposes (Bakhshi et al. 2013). It centres human authorship, expression and recognition — exactly what generative AI in the arts unsettles.
- Four orienting questions
- The module’s scan for creative-AI cases: who created the original work? who benefits from the AI? who might be harmed? was consent given? A quick stakeholder-and-consent check.
- Authorship / intellectual property
- The claim to have created a work and to control its use. Generative models trained on existing creative work raise unresolved questions about whose authorship and IP the outputs draw on.
- Labour displacement
- The replacement or devaluing of human creative workers (session musicians, illustrators, writers) when generative AI can produce substitutes cheaply — a central harm in the creative-industries debate.
- Platform power
- The concentration of market and infrastructural control in a few platforms, producing an asymmetry of value creation in which the platform captures most of the value that others’ creative work generates.
- Authenticity / voice
- The value attached to a work genuinely expressing a particular human creator; generative substitutes can erode the recognition and distinctiveness that give creative work its meaning.
AI Ethics and the Creative Economies FAQ
Is Week 6 examinable even though it’s the essay week?
Yes. There is no new theory lecture in Week 6 (the essay-skills session itself is the one non-examinable lecture), but the AI-and-creative-economies module content is examinable in the closed-book exam. Know the four orienting questions and the four tensions — authorship/IP, labour, authenticity, platform power — well enough to apply them to a scenario.
What are the four orienting questions and how do I use them?
Who created the original work? Who benefits from the AI? Who might be harmed? Was consent given? Answer them in order for any generative-AI-in-the-arts case and you get a fast, complete stakeholder-and-consent map that you can then argue from with any one of the three theories. It is a markable scaffold, so practise it until it is automatic.
How does the in-class essay relate to this week?
The Week-6 handwritten, closed-book in-class essay (~90 minutes, ~1000 words, 30%) applies Weeks 1–5 theory to an AI scenario — and creative-industry cases are natural material. Plan before writing, commit to one theory, and use case details as evidence; essays scoring below 50% are re-marked by a second marker, so a clear defended position matters.
Can AI help me prepare creative-economy cases for COMP90087?
Yes. Sia can generate fresh generative-AI-in-the-arts scenarios, walk you through the four orienting questions, and help you turn the scan into a single-theory argument — explaining each step and checking your reasoning. It is built to mirror how the University of Melbourne assesses this and does not write the essay you submit; the subject’s GenAI policy and integrity rules apply.
Exam move
Memorise the four orienting questions and practise running them on a fresh generative-AI creative case each week, because they are both a markable scaffold and the fastest way to map a scenario for the in-class essay. Attach each of the four tensions (authorship/IP, labour, authenticity, platform power) to a concrete example so you can name harms precisely. Since this is the in-class-essay week, rehearse converting the four-question scan into a timed one-theory argument — pick the theory the case most naturally supports (often deontology when consent is missing) and land a reasoned verdict. Confirm the essay logistics on Canvas and keep the module content in active recall for the closed-book hurdle exam.
Working through AI Ethics and the Creative Economies in COMP90087? Sia is AskSia’s AI AI Ethics tutor — ask any COMP90087 AI Ethics and the Creative Economies question and get a clear, step-by-step explanation grounded in how COMP90087 is taught and assessed. Read this chapter free, then take your hardest questions to Sia.
