What do the actor Kevin Bacon, the novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, the musician Robert Smith, and the journalist and historian Sidney Blumenthal have in common? They are among the 11,500 signatories of a petition against unlicensed use of creative works for AI training.
“The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works, and must not be permitted,” signatories warn.
The petition comes at a time when lawmakers are considering how to respond to data being scraped for generative AI development. Last week, the Financial Times reported the U.K. government plans to consult on an ‘opt out’ model for AI content scraping.
Per the Guardian, the petition was organized by British composer Ed Newton-Rex, a former exec at Stability AI, who said creatives are exceptionally worried. He accuses AI companies of “dehumanizing” people’s art and work by calling it “training data.”