The AI ​​attack on our intellectual property must be stopped

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A writer is a novelist

In 1989, we bought a small house in the shadow of the medieval city walls of Carcassonne. It was the beginning of my love affair with Languedoc – the history, the arcane secrets hidden in the landscape, the endless blue sky, the light over the mountains at dusk. It would inspire my first historical travel book, Labyrinthwhich would go on to be translated into 38 languages ​​and sold in over 40 countries. Its global success is the reason I quit my day job and became a full-time writer.

So imagine my dismay to discover that those 15 years of dreaming, researching, planning, writing, rewriting, editing, visiting libraries and archives, translating Occitan texts, hunting down early 13th-century documents, becoming a Cathar scholar, apparently important. for nothing. Labyrinth is one of my few completed books A great Meta language model. This was done without my consent, without reward, without notice. This is theft.

I am excited about artificial intelligence and its possibilities. Using technology to improve, develop, test and improve is part of any artist’s toolkit. We need time to create and, perhaps, AI can give us breathing space to do things we love. But stealing intellectual property is an attack on innovation and copyright, and will undermine the UK’s leading innovation economy. The time has come to come together and take action.

This has been a busy month in parliament for AI. On December 3, the Licensing and Collecting Writers Association launched the report “Brave New World?” at a meeting of the All Party Parliamentary Secretaries Group. This survey of nearly 13,500 authors’ opinions on AI threw a hand grenade into the one-sided debate about the illegal hacking and crawling of authors’ work and the misconceptions surrounding it.

On 9 December, Baroness Beeban Kidron called on drafters to discuss three proposed changes to the data (use and access) bill going through parliament, which would make copyright law of the UK to work during the production of AI.

This comes ahead of government talks on how to strengthen trust between sectors, to ensure AI developers give copyright owners more clarity on how their property is being used. So far, so good. Furthermore, when the draft consultation was revealed, it was revealed that it was an attempt to undermine UK copyright laws in the name of “progress” by suggesting that creators and rights holders must “get out” of their work. used for AI training.

When the House of Lords debated Kidron’s reforms this week, their peers came together to scorn the government’s plans, with Kidron noting: “The government has sold the creative industries downstream.” .”

AI companies portray innovators as anti-revolutionary. We are not like that. Every developer I know is already working with AI in one way or another. But a distinction should be made between AI that can be used in good ways – for example, medical diagnosis – and the basics of AI, where companies steal the work of creators for their own benefit. We shouldn’t forget that AI companies rely on designers to build their brand. Without strong copyright law that ensures creators can make a living, AI companies will lack the high-quality assets that are critical to their future growth.

The UK has one of the most successful, innovative and profitable industries in the world, worth around £108bn a year. The publishing industry alone contributes £11bn each year and has the potential to grow another £5.6bn over the next decade. It supports 84,000 jobs and leads the world in broadcasting, with 20 percent growth predicted by 2033. In the film industry, 70 percent of top-grossing films 20 in 2023 were based on books.

One of the reasons for this global success is because we have strict and fair copyright laws. The UK pioneered these. The Act of Anne, passed in 1710, was intended to encourage learning and support the book trade, creating a framework in which authors of a work had full rights, making it illegal to law for publishers to reproduce work without permission or payment.

It is this strong and fair system that the government will undermine if it pursues an opt-out – or “reservation of rights” in the new parlance – rather than an opt-in approach. Why should we authors bear the burden of preventing AI companies from stealing our work? If a producer wants to make a movie of it, or a radio show, or a piece of theater, they come to us and we make a deal. Although the technology is new and evolving, the principle remains the same. AI is no different. It’s not just about being unfair, or working illegally, it’s about economic growth. If designers have to spend time trying to get AI companies to stop our work from being scrapped, we’ll have less time to work. This, in turn, will curtail our world-class creative industries and undermine growth.

I fully support the government in its determination to harness the future and become a world leader in AI innovation. More than sixty years ago, at the Labor party conference in 1963, Harold Wilson spoke of the “white heat of technological change” and the “spiritual university”. This Labor Government is following through on those forward thinking steps. But weakening copyright is not the way to do it. Placing the burden on other writers and designers to come out is not the way to do it. Without the first job, nothing.