InnoEthics Week 3
What’s been happening recently in the world of ethical AI and technology ethics?
This week we cover AI music artists, the impact of AI and LLMs on culture and language, and I highlight an upcoming webinar hosted by All Tech Is Human on the subject of ‘AI Literacy for Social Impact’.
Xania Monet: AI artist charting on Billboard causes controversy
‘Xania Monet’ has become the first AI artist to chart on US Billboard rankings, earning enough airplay to debut on a radio chart. According to Billboard, this is following a trend of AI artists debuting in the chart weeks.
Monet, the AI artist, is operated by Mississippi poet and designer Telisha “Nikki” Hones, who reportedly uses generative AI software to set her poems to music and has signed a multimillion-dollar record deal with a music label.
Monet’s track ‘How Was I Supposed to Know?’ reached No. 30 on the Adult R&B Airplay chart, and has racked up reportedly over 44.4 million streams in a number of months.
Musicians and artists (of the non-AI kind) have had mixed opinions on the way that AI is entering the music industry. A few months ago I published an article about how UK artists were protesting against AI developers freely using copyrighted material to train music-generating AI’s.
Having AI artists achieving chart places raises a series of questions surrounding copyrighting and ownership of content, and artists such as Elton John, Kate Bush, and Paul McCartney have warned that these developments will threaten the careers and earnings of young and up-and-coming artists.
Read the NME’s article on Xania Monet here: https://www.nme.com/news/music/xania-monet-becomes-first-ai-artist-to-chart-on-us-billboard-rankings-3904887
Former PM of Iceland highlights the impact of AI on language and culture
The former PM of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir, has said that the “Icelandic language could be wiped out in as little as a generation due to the sweeping rise of AI and encroaching English language dominance.
Icelandic is a language spoken by 390,000 people and is the primary language of Iceland, however English is widely spoken in Iceland, with mandatory learning of English in schools, a large amount of English-language media, and a booming tourism industry contributing to a high level of English proficiency.
Jakobsdóttir says the trend of fewer people reading in Icelandic is exacerbated by the way language models are trained. Because the majority of large language models are trained in English and using English-language source material, languages that have far smaller native populations have to make ‘proactive’ effort to push for AI to be usable in those languages.
For example, earlier this month Anthropic “announced a partnership with Iceland’s ministry of education, one of the world’s first national AI education pilots.” Jakobsdóttir also highlights the importance of ensuring Icelandic texts and books were used to train the AI developed.
This question of whether the proliferation of large language models in day to day life will affect societal aspects such as cultural heterogeneity is something I asked AI thought-leader Reid Hoffman at a talk earlier this year.
To read about the impact of AI and English-language media on Icelandic and Jakobsdóttir’s thoughts, check out the full Guardian article: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/nov/15/icelandic-is-in-danger-of-dying-out-because-of-ai-and-english-language-media-says-former-pm
Upcoming Livestream: ‘AI Literacy for Social Impact’
This week I am highlighting an upcoming webinar hosted by All Tech Is Human, with this month’s subject being ‘AI Literacy for Social Impact’, featuring Vilas Dhar, President of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation in conversation with Rebekah Tweed of All Tech Is Human.
The webinar will focus on the work of the Patrick J. McGovern Foundation in advancing AI and data solutions for sustainable futures, and the importance of non-profit leaders increasing AI literacy in order to understand how to responsibly adopt AI to amplify their impact.
One of the focuses of InnoEthics is how we can use emerging technology for social good, and how we can responsibly develop and implement AI for sustainable and ethical initiatives.
Moreover, AI literacy is essential to enable individuals to use AI tools responsibly and effectively, navigating its risks in an increasingly AI-driven world.
The webinar will take place Thursday 20th November at 1:00pm EST (6pm UK time). Register using the following link: https://alltechishuman.org/virtual-livestreams
Click here to find out in more depth about each of these topics and participate further discussion about these topics. Let me know your thoughts in the comments below.