Academic Perspective: Mapping the Ethics of AI in Documentary Film from Archives to Deepfakes

Who speaks with the voice of an algorithm? And who holds control over storytelling when the tool itself becomes a co-author? This academic panel maps the ethical dilemmas brought by the use of artificial intelligence in documentary film.

Katarina Cizek (MIT Co-Creation Studio) will introduce seven key threats AI poses to human creativity, from the erosion of ethics to the flattening of diversity.

Lucie Králová and Miriam Ryndová, Future Memory Lab (FML) founders, will present new FAMU and FML research AIrchivist, supported by the Czech Technology Agency, focused on the ethical dilemmas and  AI prototype development for critical and innovative work with archival materials.

Andreea Lăcătuș (One World Romania, Bucharest) will open the discussion with the issue of vanishing voices and the dilemmas of using deepfake technologies to reconstruct missing audio.

Marta Materska-Samek (Jagiellonian University, Kraków) will bring insights from the Polish film industry, showing how filmmakers grapple with the question of whether AI is a threat or a collaborator.

Jan Motal (Masaryk University) will focus on ways filmmakers can reclaim creative control through open-source tools and collective practice.

Moderated by Veronika Kováč

Language: English (with interpretation into Czech).