According to the Writers Guild of Great Britain, 65 percent of respondents to a recent survey sent to its members said they thought the increased use of artificial intelligence would reduce their income from writing. Meanwhile, 61 percent said they were worried that AI could replace their jobs.
In response, the union has published Writers and AI, a policy position statement that outlines the challenges it feels are caused by AI and the risks that go with it, as well as the potential benefits of AI to the writing profession — such as its use in detecting copyright infringements.
Current concerns about AI identified in Writers and AI include decreased job opportunities for writers, the suppression of writer pay, infringements of copyright and the use of writers’ work without their permission, plus lack of adequate regulation from the Government. A total of 81 percent of respondents to the survey felt that writers should be paid a fee when their work is used by AI systems.
The guild claims that while AI systems are not yet sophisticated enough to accurately mimic the standard of writing produced by professional writers, this will be a likely future scenario. However, it said it did not believe that AI would ever be able to match the originality, authenticity, enthusiasm and humanity that professional writers put into their storytelling. It also suggested that potential benefits to AI include allowing writers to diversify and increase their income streams and sustain a writing career.
Within Writers and AI, the WGGB makes a number of recommendations that it says will help it inform its lobbying and campaigning work in the future.
These include:
- AI developers should only use writers’ work if they have been given express permission to do so – reflecting the view of 80 percent of respondents to the WGGB survey.
- AI developers should maintain clear and accessible logs of the information used to train their tool to allow writers to check if their work has been used – reflecting 82 percent of survey respondents who said developers should be transparent about what data they have used in creating AI systems, including where they have used writers’ work.
- Where content has been generated, or decisions have been made by AI and not a human being it needs to be clearly labeled as such.
- Where AI has been used to create content, AI developers should appropriately credit the authors whose work has been used to create such content.
- 59 percent of respondents to the WGGB AI survey believed that a new, independent regulator should be set up to oversee and monitor the expansion of AI and the union believes the government should set up a new regulatory body whose remits specifically cover AI, applicable to all future and previous AI development work, so that writers and others are able to assert their rights regarding work which has already been used without their knowledge or permission.
- The Government should not allow any copyright exceptions to allow text and data mining for commercial purposes. This would allow AI developers to scrape writers’ work from online sources, without permission or payment.
- There should also be clear, accessible and affordable routes for writers to challenge the practices of AI developers and bring claims regarding the use of their work.
“There have been some incredible advancements in AI, but as with any new technology we need to weigh the risks against the benefits and ensure that the speed of development does not outpace or derail the protections that writers and the wider creative workforce rely upon to make a living,” said WGGB deputy general secretary Lesley Gannon.
“Regulation is clearly needed to safeguard workers’ rights and protect audiences from fraud and misinformation. WGGB is proposing a series of sensible recommendations that will help protect and reassure the writing community, whilst allowing them to enjoy the benefits of this undoubtedly powerful tool.”
