The Directors Guild of Canada (DGC) has unveiled the Manifesto on the Value of Human Creativity, a declaration calling on governments, tech companies, broadcasters, producers, funders, and audiences to protect human creativity, cultural expression, and creative labour in the age of AI.
Unveiled this week during the Banff World Media Festival, the DGC says the manifesto is a response to the rapid expansion of AI technologies across the audiovisual sector, warning that beyond economics and jobs, it raises fundamental questions about authorship, cultural sovereignty, artistic expression, and the future of storytelling.
“Technology must remain in service to humanity, not the other way around,” said Warren P. Sonoda, DGC National President. “Human creativity is not an inefficiency to be optimized away. Storytelling is one of humanity’s oldest and most powerful forms of expression, and we must ensure that the people who create artistic works continue to shape the future.”
Among the document’s core principles are that art is not content – creative work is an expression of the human experience and not merely a product designed to feed algorithms and maximize engagement – and that tools are not authors. AI systems may assist with creative work, but can’t replace human authorship, creative labour, or cultural responsibility.
The DGC maintains that the risks posed by AI are cultural as well as economic, with systems “optimized for scale” threatening “to flatten culture, reduce diversity of expression, and undermine distinct national and regional voices.” The manifesto also says creative innovation must account for environmental sustainability and the energy demands of large-scale AI systems.
It outlines a series of recommendations for government, regulators and other stakeholders that include stronger protections for human authorship, transparency with respect to AI-generated material, standardized mandatory reporting and disclosure regarding use of AI tools, and safeguards against the displacement of creative workers.
“The question before us is not whether technology will continue to evolve,” said Alistair Hepburn, National Executive Director of the DGC. “The question is whether the future of culture will continue to be shaped by people, communities, and creative voices, or increasingly by systems designed for scale and automation. We believe that human creativity remains essential to culture, democracy, and storytelling.”
