Statement Opposing Unauthorized Use of Generative AI Creations
Featuring Hollywood Actor Julianne Moore and Others
13,500 global cultural and artistic figures, including Nobel Literature Prize winners and famous Hollywood actors, have issued a statement opposing the unauthorized use of creative works for training generative artificial intelligence (AI).
According to the Washington Post (WP) on the 22nd (local time), the statement was led by Ed Newton-Rex, head of the nonprofit organization 'Fairly Trained,' which protects creators' copyrights against AI companies, and had received 13,500 signatures as of 9:20 a.m.
In the statement, they argued, "Using creative works without permission to train generative AI is a serious and unfair threat to the livelihoods of the people who created those works and should not be allowed."
The statement's website, which collects signatures online, includes names such as Kazuo Ishiguro, a Japanese-British novelist who won the Nobel Literature Prize in 2017; famous Hollywood actors Julianne Moore and Kevin Bacon; Tom Yorke, the vocalist of the popular British rock band Radiohead; comedian Rosie O'Donnell; and organizations such as the world's three major record labels Universal, Sony, and Warner Music Group, the American Federation of Musicians, the Screen Actors Guild?American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), and the European Writers Council.
Newton-Rex criticized, "Generative AI companies spend huge amounts on the first two of the three core resources needed to build AI models?engineers and computing?but expect to use the third, training data, for free. What they call 'training data' and describe inhumanely are actually texts, artworks, and music created by humans."
Newton-Rex argued that the existing 'opt-out' system, where companies exclude the use of works only if creators explicitly express refusal, does not fundamentally solve the problem. He pointed out, "It is unfair to place the burden of refusing AI training solely on creators. If the government truly cared about creators, it would have established an opt-in system where companies use works only if creators consent." Newton-Rex previously worked at the UK startup Stability AI, which developed the image-generating AI 'Stable Diffusion,' and resigned last year in protest against the company's policy on using creative works.
In the United States, several authors are already pursuing copyright infringement lawsuits against AI companies such as OpenAI. Last year, 17 famous authors, including George R.R. Martin, the original author of the drama 'Game of Thrones,' filed a class-action lawsuit against OpenAI. However, experts believe winning the case will not be easy. WP explained, "For plaintiffs to win, they must directly prove that their creative works were used not as one of the many data inputs for AI model outputs but solely for simple imitation or plagiarism."
© The Asia Business Daily(www.asiae.co.kr). All rights reserved.
