Julia Barnett

Julia Barnett

Generative audio models typically focus their applications in music and speech generation, with recent models having human-like quality in their audio output. This paper conducts a systematic literature review of 884 papers in the area of generative audio models in order to both quantify the degree to which researchers in the field are considering potential negative impacts and identify the types of ethical implications researchers in this area need to consider. Though 65% of generative audio research papers note positive potential impacts of their work, less than 10% discuss any negative impacts. This jarringly small percentage of papers considering negative impact is particularly worrying because the issues brought to light by the few papers doing so are raising serious ethical implications and concerns relevant to the broader field such as the potential for fraud, deep-fakes, and copyright infringement. By quantifying this lack of ethical consideration in generative audio research and identifying key areas of potential harm, this paper lays the groundwork for future work in the field at a critical point in time in order to guide more conscientious research as this field progresses.

Julia Barnett, Kimon Kieslich, Natali Helberger et al.

As the rapid proliferation of AI systems and harms spurs efforts in AI governance around the world, prioritizing among competing policy options has become increasingly challenging for policymakers and researchers. We introduce a methodology for identifying viable policy options to mitigate specified AI harms, helping policymakers and researchers target areas that warrant greater time and resource investment. This method combines participatory evaluation of policies, expert assessment of implementation costs, and an LLM-based assessment of perceived harm mitigation under each policy option. We leverage a genetic algorithm-based simulation study to explore a vast solution space of potential policy combinations, and examine how outcomes change under different weightings of cost, participatory input, and harm mitigation. We find that this method enables exploration of different balances between participatory and expert components, allowing policymakers and researchers to assess how much weight to assign to each. We argue that the diversity of viable policy combinations found by the genetic algorithm could be a useful starting point for deliberation. This method operationalizes existing work on participatory AI by integrating it directly into practical policy development pipelines.

Julia Barnett, Hugo Flores Garcia, Bryan Pardo

Every artist has a creative process that draws inspiration from previous artists and their works. Today, "inspiration" has been automated by generative music models. The black box nature of these models obscures the identity of the works that influence their creative output. As a result, users may inadvertently appropriate, misuse, or copy existing artists' works. We establish a replicable methodology to systematically identify similar pieces of music audio in a manner that is useful for understanding training data attribution. A key aspect of our approach is to harness an effective music audio similarity measure. We compare the effect of applying CLMR and CLAP embeddings to similarity measurement in a set of 5 million audio clips used to train VampNet, a recent open source generative music model. We validate this approach with a human listening study. We also explore the effect that modifications of an audio example (e.g., pitch shifting, time stretching, background noise) have on similarity measurements. This work is foundational to incorporating automated influence attribution into generative modeling, which promises to let model creators and users move from ignorant appropriation to informed creation. Audio samples that accompany this paper are available at https://tinyurl.com/exploring-musical-roots.

Julia Barnett, Kimon Kieslich, Nicholas Diakopoulos

The rapid advancement of AI technologies yields numerous future impacts on individuals and society. Policymakers are tasked to react quickly and establish policies that mitigate those impacts. However, anticipating the effectiveness of policies is a difficult task, as some impacts might only be observable in the future and respective policies might not be applicable to the future development of AI. In this work we develop a method for using large language models (LLMs) to evaluate the efficacy of a given piece of policy at mitigating specified negative impacts. We do so by using GPT-4 to generate scenarios both pre- and post-introduction of policy and translating these vivid stories into metrics based on human perceptions of impacts. We leverage an already established taxonomy of impacts of generative AI in the media environment to generate a set of scenario pairs both mitigated and non-mitigated by the transparency policy in Article 50 of the EU AI Act. We then run a user study (n=234) to evaluate these scenarios across four risk-assessment dimensions: severity, plausibility, magnitude, and specificity to vulnerable populations. We find that this transparency legislation is perceived to be effective at mitigating harms in areas such as labor and well-being, but largely ineffective in areas such as social cohesion and security. Through this case study we demonstrate the efficacy of our method as a tool to iterate on the effectiveness of policy for mitigating various negative impacts. We expect this method to be useful to researchers or other stakeholders who want to brainstorm the potential utility of different pieces of policy or other mitigation strategies.

William Agnew, Julia Barnett, Annie Chu et al.

Generative audio models are rapidly advancing in both capabilities and public utilization -- several powerful generative audio models have readily available open weights, and some tech companies have released high quality generative audio products. Yet, while prior work has enumerated many ethical issues stemming from the data on which generative visual and textual models have been trained, we have little understanding of similar issues with generative audio datasets, including those related to bias, toxicity, and intellectual property. To bridge this gap, we conducted a literature review of hundreds of audio datasets and selected seven of the most prominent to audit in more detail. We found that these datasets are biased against women, contain toxic stereotypes about marginalized communities, and contain significant amounts of copyrighted work. To enable artists to see if they are in popular audio datasets and facilitate exploration of the contents of these datasets, we developed a web tool audio datasets exploration tool at https://audio-audit.vercel.app.

Julia Barnett, Kimon Kieslich, Jasmine Sinchai et al.

Scenario building is an established method to anticipate the future of emerging technologies. Its primary goal is to use narratives to map future trajectories of technology development and sociotechnical adoption. Following this process, risks and benefits can be identified early on, and strategies can be developed that strive for desirable futures. In recent years, computer science has adopted this method and applied it to various technologies, including Artificial Intelligence (AI). Because computing technologies play such an important role in shaping modern societies, it is worth exploring how scenarios are being used as an anticipatory tool in the field -- and what possible traditional uses of scenarios are not yet covered but have the potential to enrich the field. We address this gap by conducting a systematic literature review on the use of scenario building methods in computer science over the last decade (n = 59). We guide the review along two main questions. First, we aim to uncover how scenarios are used in computing literature, focusing especially on the rationale for why scenarios are used. Second, in following the potential of scenario building to enhance inclusivity in research, we dive deeper into the participatory element of the existing scenario building literature in computer science.

Julia Barnett, Kimon Kieslich, Natali Helberger et al.

The potential for negative impacts of AI has rapidly become more pervasive around the world, and this has intensified a need for responsible AI governance. While many regulatory bodies endorse risk-based approaches and a multitude of risk mitigation practices are proposed by companies and academic scholars, these approaches are commonly expert-centered and thus lack the inclusion of a significant group of stakeholders. Ensuring that AI policies align with democratic expectations requires methods that prioritize the voices and needs of those impacted. In this work we develop a participative and forward-looking approach to inform policy-makers and academics that grounds the needs of lay stakeholders at the forefront and enriches the development of risk mitigation strategies. Our approach (1) maps potential mitigation and prevention strategies of negative AI impacts that assign responsibility to various stakeholders, (2) explores the importance and prioritization thereof in the eyes of laypeople, and (3) presents these insights in policy fact sheets, i.e., a digestible format for informing policy processes. We emphasize that this approach is not targeted towards replacing policy-makers; rather our aim is to present an informative method that enriches mitigation strategies and enables a more participatory approach to policy development.