Generative Series Creative Rights Salon: Economy of human creative work in the Ai age -- cohosted w/ITIF (Invite Only)

On Monday, November 9, the Generative Series returns to The LINE DC for a salon conversation on these hard questions, just after the midterms. Following our September salon on intellectual property, this salon looks beyond IP to the other policy levers we might pull to support human creativity in the age of AI.

The program will be co-hosted — by think tank ITIF and Kevin Bankston from CDT and Georgetown Law — at the LINE Hotel’s breathtaking Monument Suite with sweeping city views, cocktails, elevated bites, and music.

The risk that AI automation of creative labor poses to human creators has mostly been framed as a debate over copyright and intellectual property: should AI training data have to be licensed from its creators? How do we define infringing AI outputs? What IP rights do or should artists have in their voices, likenesses, or styles? Are AI-generated works copyrightable at all?

But a much broader set of policy questions about the future of creative work is often ignored. How can we better protect creative freelancers from economic precarity? How can we promote human authorship financially, or through policy steps like requiring disclosure when AI is used in creative works? How can creatives better leverage collective bargaining to protect themselves from AI displacement, as the writer and actor guilds in Hollywood have?

These questions are critical because even if courts rule that AI companies must pay for the creative works they train on, those payments may not be enough for most individual creative workers to live on, and creative industries will still be transformed by AI automation. So how do we help ensure a vibrant community and economy of human creative work, regardless of the IP angle?

Lawmakers have begun to widen the lens. The bipartisan Congressional Creators Caucus and Rep. Ro Khanna's Creator Bill of Rights resolution, introduced in January, point to a broader agenda: portable benefits and health care, clear revenue-sharing terms, transparency about the algorithms that shape creators' pay and reach, and transparency and accountability for AI and synthetic media. The Generative Series, together with ITIF, wants to contribute to the conversation about what a true Creator Bill of Rights could look like, beyond the bounds of copyright.

Four levers matter most: what creators can earn, how creative workers organize, when AI use must be disclosed, and what terms platforms set. We will bring lawmakers from both parties, labor, economists, artists, and platforms in one room to talk about all four.

Pinterest is helping to support this Salon. Jesse Barba, Pinterest Head of Government Affairs, Americas will offer brief remarks alongside leading artists, creatives and policy leaders in Washington.

Featuring:

Congressional leadership — TBA

Kevin Bankston, Georgetown Law Adjunct Professor of AI and Copyright; Senior AI Governance Advisor at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT); publisher of the AI and media newsletter Converger.

Michelle Lopes Maldonado, Associate Director, AI Policy, Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF).

Jesse Barba, Pinterest Head of Government Affairs Americas.

Invite only. RSVP required. Curated speakers, Q&A, cocktails.

Presented by the Generative Series with ITIF.