Voices in Creative Innovation: Mata Haggis-Burridge, BUas, Professor of Creative and Entertainment Games
Tell us about your journey through the creative industry and how you got inspired by AI?
I started making animations and games using Flash in 2000, and so I learned how to create the script, art, motion, audio, and code all by hand, usually via a mix of experimentation, tips scattered across various webpages, and a groaning shelf of ‘Friends Of ED’ books. I moved into full-time game development a few years later, working at AAA studios in the UK, then in 2010 I joined BUas in the Netherlands teaching game design, writing, and ethics before shifting across to my professorship to work on R&D projects linked to the field of entertainment video games and media. Alongside my traditional R&D work, I still provide consultancy for game companies, typically writing the stories and scripts for their games, doing voice direction, and advising on other aspects like pitching, market fit, and design. In my professorship I’ve a lot of responsibilities and work across R&D, teaching, consultancy, policy development, and participation on quite a large number of industry and academic boards.
I find AI very interesting. I’m openly skeptical of over-promising and attributing near-magical powers to tools that may have hard systemic limits to their capacities, and the ethical, environmental, and financial footprints of these technologies concerns me greatly. However, this does not mean that I think AI is collectively bad, only that we need to understand how its capabilities can best serve workers and wider society. For example, in Davinci Resolve Studio, there are a number of AI-driven tools for film creation, such as masking items, face refinement, and smart reframing, which can save hours or even days compared to old workflows. When applied in these ways, AI allows creators to more easily reach their visions and potential, hopefully without cutting humans from the process.
Our audiences include emerging talent, students, and educators, what advice would you give to people entering the industry during such a fast-moving, rapidly changing time?
There are some technical skills that you absolutely need to find work, but it’s soft skills that build a career. For example, there are a lot of people who can operate a camera, but being reliable, friendly, professional, trustworthy, and getting that ‘click’ with a director means you get asked back for the next job, or recommended for a new job by a colleague. This doesn’t mean you need to be a party animal and socialise every hour with the crew (often the opposite!) but you do need to be part of creating a successful and creative atmosphere.
For following the trends in technical skills, find good quality industry sources. Those may be websites but it can also be newsletters from well-connected journalists. Find sources that are aimed at industry professionals, not audiences: there is a huge difference in how information is delivered, and this professional perspective can help you navigate with greater clarity through hype cycles to find the technologies and skills that deliver on their promises. If you’re jumping from one technological bandwagon to the next, you might find you’re riding in the wrong direction and end up left behind.
Develop a healthy level of critical thinking about trends and technologies and see where new approaches do, or don’t, fit into your professional toolset. Try not to dismiss things too quickly and do give them a chance, but if your gut tells you constantly that there’s a problem then interrogate that feeling to find where the issue lies: you might discover a new path that helps others, which leads us back to soft skills again. We’re stronger when we appreciate collective experiences, so learning emotional intelligence and connecting that with critical thinking can create meaningful approaches that you can share with your peers. These kinds of thoughtful and human-centred skills will make you more capable of riding the waves of industry changes.
How do you see AI reshaping the creative industries right now, and what changes feel most exciting to you personally?
My core interest has always been rooted in storytelling and experiences. Video games and linear media are at their most powerful when they speak to our emotions, whether those are love, fear, excitement, or melancholy. Where technical barriers have existed in the past, I see potential for AI tools to help creators bring their visions into reality more easily. Specifically, I’m much less interested in genAI than broader AI tools that remove unnecessary complexity or repetition from production pipelines and that give a greater range of expression for creators.
What do you believe is the most misunderstood aspect of AI in creative work?
LLMs and image generation are only one form of AI. While they have specific use-cases, I think there are very good reasons to be sceptical about many of these tools. However, there are many brilliant applications and developments beyond genAI that can accelerate and enhance creative work.
Within the AICI, what part of the project excites you the most and why?
One aspect of the AICI project attempted to build a genAI-driven storyboard tool with ethically-sourced training materials. Not only did this show an approach to respecting copyright, it also clearly highlighted many of the technical challenges and limits with these technologies. Great R&D means that sometimes you hit brick walls, and I love that the storyboard tool both found many of these and documented the complexities for others to learn from.
What creative disciplines or mediums do you feel AI is especially well-suited to support, and why?
As mentioned before, there are some clear applications in film editing where AI tools can make life a lot easier, such as audio matching or blending between similar cuts. For indie creators making short films for social media, AI editing tools are lowering the technical challenges of delivering high quality visuals and audio. This gives them more time to work on other tasks in the pipeline and to focus on the core inspirational and informational messages.
What challenges do you think our industry still needs to overcome to adopt AI meaningfully and ethically?
Ethically, overcoming the challenges is very hard! There are many angles to be considered, such as only using licensed or post-copyright training materials, through to the sourcing of the raw materials needed for AI chips and the environmental impacts of production and use.
Regarding ‘meaningfully’ adopting AI, that is perhaps an easier pathway. Many common production tools use various forms of AI already, from cleaning up audio to altering the lighting in a scene, or creating new textures for a game. AI is already embedded in many places to enhance the efficiency of production pipelines. There is a deeper, and unresolved, question regarding how much further we want to integrate AI into our industries. Do we really want to watch a film that could be made from a single prompt? AI could one day soon create whole entertainment experiences based on our tastes, but losing a collective social experience of, for example, fandom and an authored vision could be a significant cultural loss. Do we want that? We need to think carefully about whether we are trying to build an answer to a question no one is asking. If we are using AI, let’s do it with careful thought and the intent to improve culture for everyone.
What skills do you think future creators will need to thrive in an AI-enabled world?
Curiosity, critical thinking, and emotional intelligence… Which is what creators have always needed!
How do you see the role of educators evolving as AI tools become more accessible?
The role of an educator has been shifting for many years towards being a guide and a mentor. While it’s possible to access immense technical skills online, it’s much harder to build sophisticated creative aesthetics without human interaction and guidance. Educational spaces also provide the perfect opportunity to begin building life-long networks of collaborators and inspirational peers. Educators need to structure experiences that foster this collective spirit for the benefit of all, delivering on both the core foundational technical skills needed today, but also the creative and interpersonal skills that will last for their whole careers.
What opportunities do you think Europe has to lead in AI for creative industries?
We have a rich cultural history and, at our best, we have diverse and inclusive societies that have found ways to mutually support differences in peaceful and democratic ways. The vision of the European Union supports a collective social stability in the interests of all people and countries. While other regions of the world can be led by private interests or pushing for uniformity, the EU’s push for ethical standards that protect citizens has given us remarkable pieces of legislation, such as privacy controls for our data. This can be seen as a barrier to pure technological ambition, but I see it as an essential balance which puts human needs (which are intrinsically linked with the whole natural world’s needs) at the centre of every discussion. With its unique political situation, the EU has the potential to guide AI towards benefitting everyone rather than disproportionately benefiting small groups of society.
What trends do you believe will shape the intersection of creativity and technology in the next five years?
Human-centred needs will continue to be the shaping force: the needs of creative workers, the needs of artists to express themselves, and the needs of audiences to find authentic and meaningful media to engage with. AI has the opportunity to both help and hinder each of these. Beyond these, the needs of the environment will be an ever-more urgent issue that forces all industries to re-evaluate their production and delivery processes.
