As a piece of technology, artificial intelligence has an incredibly wide and vast selection of areas where it can truly enhance how we work and how we operate.

We are, for instance, already seeing it being used in making Malta’s tax collection system more efficient and seeing how it can be used in areas such as the health sector and the transport sector.

Yet there are areas where the rise of AI has had a detrimental effect, in more ways than one, and one of those is in the creative sector.

Ever since the mainstreaming of AI platforms, making them accessible to anybody with a device and an internet connection, there has been a proliferation of AI-generated art – colloquially termed as “AI-slop” – that has overtaken and overwhelmed the sector and creative thinking, and had a severely detrimental effect on the creatives themselves.

Art and culture is already a difficult sector to work in: the sector can be incredibly competitive, the money on offer is decidedly unglamorous, and it is a deeply underappreciated area to be involved in.  But now one must add to the equation that creatives are having to compete with AI programmes that can churn out content at the push of a button – content which is usually vastly inferior, but at the same time ‘adequate’ enough for most to get by with.

It’s bad enough when the private sector begins to turn to this, or when social media is overrun by pseudo-artists who think that because they can put a prompt into an AI bot then they are suddenly artistically gifted.

But it’s even worse when the taxpayer-funded national broadcaster resorts to replacing creatives with artificial intelligence.

This is what happened with the music video for Eliza Borg's Junior Eurovision entry, I Believe, was made using generative AI.

In response, more than 220 artists and organisations signed an open letter criticising the national broadcaster, PBS, for sidelining local talent and disregarding earlier warnings about the unchecked use of AI in cultural production.

The letter follows recent concerns raised by Solidarjetà and the Malta Entertainment Industry and Arts Association (MEIA), who had urged PBS to discuss the growing reliance on generative AI in television production.

Instead of engaging, the groups said, PBS proceeded with an AI-driven music video-an approach they argue undermines both artists and viewers.

Representatives from across the sector described the video as visually uniform and narratively unoriginal, saying the choice to use AI excluded choreographers, dancers, costume designers, directors, cinematographers, actors, animators, musicians and VFX professionals who could have delivered a genuinely Maltese creative product.

They emphasised that Malta has a strong pool of skilled artists eager for opportunities like this, calling PBS's decision a blow to a sector already fighting for visibility and resource, and saying that beyond lost work, PBS is expected to invest in local talent and deliver productions that reflect Malta's culture, not rely on shortcuts they say weaken artistic quality and cultural value.

These artists are absolutely correct in their interpretation of the situation.  A taxpayer-funded station like PBS does have a responsibility to use our taxes in the country’s best interest – and the country’s best interest is by investing in its talent.

There is a rising trend wherein creative work is being replaced by AI-generated content: a trend which could spell the final death blow for an already struggling creative industry. 

Entities such as PBS need to be doing what they can to support the creative industry, rather than buying into the practices that are slowly killing it.