Generative artificial intelligence is rapidly transforming image-making, music, film, publishing, design and communication. For the cultural and creative industries, the central question is no longer whether these tools will be used, but under what economic and ethical conditions.
A 2026 preprint, Dream Machine — The Next Creative Economy, analyses 374 primary sources, including studies, public consultations, creator surveys, platform data and cultural-policy documents. Its authors propose four principles for the transition: transparency, consent, compensation and human-centred design.
More generated content, limited real attention
The study describes a “slop ceiling”: the point at which mass-produced AI content increases supply without generating equivalent audience demand.
Across some of the environments examined, AI-generated or heavily AI-assisted files may represent around 44% of new uploads while attracting only about 1% to 3% of consumption. These figures require caution because the paper remains a preprint, but the underlying lesson is important: producing more does not automatically create more cultural or economic value.
Audience attention continues to concentrate on works that are identifiable, curated and shaped by artistic intention.
1. Transparency
Audiences, commissioners and artists should be able to understand how a work was made. This means documenting the use of generative models, the main stages of transformation and, where known, the provenance of training material.
Transparency does not imply that AI-assisted work is inherently less valuable. It establishes trust and helps distinguish technical assistance from the wholesale substitution of creative labour.
Cultural organisations can translate this principle into practical measures: disclosure clauses in commissions, production notes, dataset documentation and clear labelling where synthetic images, voices or performances could mislead the public.
2. Consent
Works, voices, images and recognisable styles used to train models should not be treated as free raw material. Creators need realistic ways to accept, refuse or negotiate the use of their content.
This is especially important for African cultural heritage, minority languages, community archives and traditional cultural expressions. Technical accessibility does not automatically make commercial reuse culturally or legally legitimate.
Consent must be meaningful. A hidden term in a platform’s general conditions is not equivalent to a specific, informed choice about model training or synthetic imitation.
3. Compensation
When creative works contribute to the economic value of a platform or model, their authors should benefit through licensing, remuneration or revenue-sharing mechanisms.
The UK consultation on AI and copyright reviewed in the study attracted more than 11,500 responses. A very large majority opposed automatically expanding training rights without safeguards for rights holders.
For Morocco and other African markets, compensation is strategic. Without traceability and licensing, music catalogues, visual archives and local creations may feed global systems without returning income to the ecosystems from which they originated.
Collective-management bodies, public authorities, cultural platforms and professional associations therefore need technical and legal capacity to identify uses and negotiate value.
4. Human-centred design
AI should expand artists’ ability to create, experiment and earn a living. It should not reduce culture to automated volume production.
In a design studio, label, newsroom or cultural institution, tools can assist with documentation, translation, visualisation, transcription, research and prototyping. Artistic decisions, editorial responsibility and the relationship with audiences should remain human.
A human-centred approach also evaluates working conditions. A tool that saves time but eliminates attribution, weakens pay or transfers risk to freelancers cannot be judged by productivity alone.
What Morocco’s cultural industries can do now
Moroccan cultural organisations can already take practical steps:
- add AI clauses to commissions and employment contracts;
- request provenance information for images, voices and datasets;
- protect digitised archives and traditional cultural expressions;
- train creators to negotiate digital rights;
- make transparent practice a condition of public funding;
- support tools adapted to Arabic, Amazigh and local contexts;
- keep a human editor accountable for every published output.
These measures connect directly with broader questions of social rights for cultural professionals and with the need to build sustainable cultural and creative industries in Morocco.
Generative AI can open markets and enable new forms of creation. Without rules, it can also intensify concentration and weaken creators’ income. The future of the creative economy will therefore depend not only on the power of its models, but on whether institutions, platforms and public authorities keep technology accountable to human creation.
