The Educational, Informational Side of IBC Andy Marken October 1, 2024
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The story you are about to see is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent. Main Title Announcer, Dragnet, Mark VII Productions, 1951-1970
Major trade shows like IBC and CES always have a hook/theme they use to attract exhibitors and attendees. Mike Crimp, IBC CEO, proved their multi-prong pitch worked with more than 1,350 exhibitors and 45,000 attendees from 170 countries.
But this year, Crimp's team's focus seems to be more than a passing theme - Accelerator Media Innovation - but a global set of initiatives the industry will have to work on for years to come.
Many of the key stakeholders - companies, governments and individuals - have already committed to helping in areas including AI (naturally), news/information disinformation, live/programmed production workflow/distribution, content accessibility, global talent provenance and personalization and ad standards as well as cybersecurity and sustainability.
After checking out a few of the sessions and talking with moderators and participants, we think we'll be seeing a lot of standards and guidelines being rolled out that we think the industry and world can support/implement.
As Crimp said at the opening of the event, the IBC community needs to explore/closely examine the technological advances and market dynamics that are shaping the industry in a period of dynamic change.
NVIDIA and AMD, the two foundation players for AI, had a strong presence in their own stands as well as almost every stand and session during the show.
While we might have a black leather jacket preference, the attendees and industry don't and simply wants to get a firm handle on the technology's leap from theory to real-world applications and their affect/effect on tomorrow.
The AI Tech Zone and a number of sessions explored how AI can be integrated into everyday operations to help them be more efficient and successful. The processor producers and software producers emphasized that AI is going to be a real game changer in terms of how it touches, influences and affects every piece of content that is developed, distributed and consumed.
At the same time, several governmental and industry speakers emphasized that the technology demands that rules and regulations be established at the outset that protect the integrity of how it is applied to operation/workflow automation, accessibility, storage and accurate viewer experiences.
That is a helluva burden for an industry that simply wants to educate, inform and entertain people around the globe.
National elections showed that the industry must be proactive in aggressively using AI to fight disinformation in news and that it will be an ongoing challenge and one that can't be abdicated to social media providers.
By the end of the year, nearly half of the world's population will have participated in elections that have experienced an unprecedented volume of disinformation that threatens democratic processes and public trust.
Judy Parnall, head of Standards & Industry at BBC, emphasized during one of the sessions that the rise of deepfakes and overwhelming volume of AI-generated social media content presents a significant risk of impersonation, misinformation that can be overwhelming and that the industry and international governmental regulators must work together to stay ahead of the developments.
A key industry initiative that was unveiled at IBC was the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA) and Project Origin that will foster closer industry collaboration and information sharing, the development of anomaly detection tools/processes and uses media provenance signals.
Following IBC, Allan McLennan, president/chief executive of PADEM Media Group and one of the members of one of the working groups, cited their work on cracking down on sexually explicit deepfakes and the requirements for AI watermarking.
He noted that members of the cross industry working group feel it's time to set aside the competitive nature of the news industry and work together to identify and address the problem of easy fakes which used to be called propaganda and develop tools and solutions that can instantaneously counter the messages with facts that are real and true.
It's a tremendous challenge, McLennan emphasized, but IBC has the full support of all of industry participants, major governmental powers and industry standards groups to make it happen. In addition, since the EU has been so aggressive with its web accessibility activities, there seemed to be a consensus that other free world governments will establish similar standards.
But it's also important to remember that despite all the advanced technology that is being focused on the problem, it will still require skilled journalistic professionals to verify and interpret the news content for viewers and listeners. For more information on the subject check IBC Accelerator Project: Design Your Weapons in the Fight Against Disinformation and IBC Conference: Beating fake news inspiring trust in the age of disinformation.
Preparing for Tomorrow - Industry players and IBC conducted a series of educational/informational sessions designed to help organizations help prepare tomorrow's creative/production workforce.
IBC, in conjunction with the EU, hosted its inaugural World Skills Caf and sessions to foster international knowledge sharing to address the industry's skills needs and the aging white male workforce.
The policy group noted that only a third of managerial and director roles are held by women and more than 90 percent of professionals in the sectors are white.
To address the skills gap shortage and underrepresented in the media technology sector, the program held a series of next-gen
