The UK government has launched an indescribably long and over-complicated consultation about copyright and AI. All it needed was one yes or no question.
Yesterday – the 17th December 2024 – the UK government put forward a proposal that tech companies should be free to train their AI chatbots on its citizens’ work. This would apply even to material that is protected via current copyright laws.
As part of the proposal, the government launched an open consultation, designed to gauge the public’s views on the whole idea. In a description on the UK gov website, the proposal states that it wants to ensure “AI developers have access to high-quality material to train leading AI models in the UK and support innovation across the UK AI sector.”
At the same time, it also seeks to enhance “right holders’ control over whether or not their works are used to train AI models, and their ability to be paid for its use where they so wish.”
As noted by the Guardian yesterday, the proposals state that tech companies like OpenAI or Google will be free to essentially take whatever copyrighted work they like unless its owners specifically tick a box that tells them not to.
The potential problem with this approach is that, while major news groups, publishers and other companies will have the legal clout to ensure their property isn’t taken if they do choose to opt out, individual artists, writers and the like will be left exposed to the whims of Big Tech.
A painter of landscapes from Cornwall may have opted out of having their art used to train a piece of software like Midjourney, for example, but would they have the funds, time and mental energy to take its creators to court if they just took it anyway? Probably not.
Read more: The Coca-Cola AI Christmas Campaign review | It’s not the real thing
To return to the government’s consultation for a moment: the related online survey is almost comically vast. It’s broken down into 17 sections, each containing as many as seven questions; each of those questions in turn requires the responder to read a section of the proposal, which can amount to hundreds of words of legalese.
Those working in certain sectors of copyright law or publishing probably won’t be too fazed by all this, though even they might balk at the hour or so it would take to digest and respond to all the points laid out.
For the rest of us, it’s like being asked to fill out another tax return at the end of the year. It’s almost as though the government’s banking on the likelihood that the majority of people will find it too complicated to get a handle on and simply give up. It’s essentially consent by attrition.
A simpler version of the consultation could have asked for a few background details from the responder: are you an individual artist; do you own a company; stuff like that. Then one question: ‘would you mind if your work was taken?’
If you don’t want to spend ages poring through the government’s plans and filling in a survey, there is an alternate avenue. As pointed out by Bluesky user Ed Newton-Rex, you could simply send a letter to your local MP.
Newton-Rex has written a template letter you could use as a starting point (here’s the Google doc), while your MP’s contact details can be found on this site.
Whether generative AI is indeed the future of everything or so much hot air, it’s disappointing that the government seems to have accepted that its dominance is an inevitability rather than something that can be defended against.
It’s not like this is the first time we’ve been told the next big thing in technology is here, now, and there’s nothing we can do about it. Remember when Rishi Sunak told the Royal Mint to create a government-sponsored NFT? Less than a year after it was announced, the whole idea was quietly scrapped.
The government’s consultation will close on the 25th February 2025. We should have just about finished filling in the online form by that date.
