Candid Conversations with Lisa Watts

Melbourne Forum members and guests were treated to a very stimulating and informative session on the hot topic - 𝗛𝗼𝘄 𝗱𝗼 𝘄𝗲 𝗮𝗱𝗱𝗿𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗧𝗵𝗲𝗳𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗿𝗼𝘂𝗴𝗵 𝗔𝗜. Our Guest Conversation Leader was Lisa Watts, global CEO of The Conversation Media Group. Lisa coined the term 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗞𝗻𝗼𝘄𝗹𝗲𝗱𝗴𝗲 𝗣𝗮𝗿𝗼𝗱𝗼𝘅  to describe how the internet was built on sharing knowledge, but that notion is now being perverted by large tech and AI firms who are scraping online content to train closed AI models.

Lisa has been heavily involved in local, national and international discussions with large tech and media organisations, rights holders and governments. These have focused on creative and sustainable ways to work positively to embrace and help shape the change that is happening around us. This includes the distinctive and thoughtful updates to Creative Commons Licensing which is the publication basis for the now eight editions of The Conversation around the world. The Conversation is now the world’s leading publisher of research-based news and analysis with huge international reach.

Lisa provided great context about the many ‘deals’ different publishers (both globally and in Australia) have made with the big tech and AI companies just over the last months.

On the same day that the Australian Prime Minister launched 𝗔𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗮’𝘀 𝗡𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝗔𝗜 𝗣𝗹𝗮𝗻, our members and guests gained real insights into what is actually happening between publishers and the large tech and AI companies. We came to understand too new and different ways in which these interactions can take place and the many different motivations of the key players.

Thanks to Lisa for a very generous session where the conversation continued long after the formal part of the evening.