Some of the world’s leading authors are demanding payments from big tech companies like OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM, and Microsoft for what they say is their work ‘feeding’ AI and putting their entire industry at risk.
In an open letter published by The Authors Guild this week, more than 9,000 authors said it was unfair for companies to develop world-shaping technology that would boost their profits.
Among its signatories are legendary crime fiction writer James Patterson, Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, Canadian author and poet Margaret Atwood, Jodi Picoult, and others.
Actor Gabriel Byrne, who is a memoirist and author, signed the letter this morning.
The letter is addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
Legendary authors including James Patterson and Dan Brown were the first to sign the open letter demanding compensation from tech companies.
The letter is addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altmam, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
It urges them to stop the ‘inherent injustice’ of life’s tasks being fed to robots to ‘reproduce’ and reproduce.
Actor Gabriel Byrne, who is also a writer, signed the letter today
‘Generative AI technologies built on big language models owe their existence to our writing.
‘These technologies imitate and reconstruct our language, stories, styles and ideas Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poems provide “food” for AI systems, endless food for which there is no bill.
‘You’re spending billions of dollars developing AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which the AI would be generic and extremely limited,’ the letter read.
It’s unclear exactly how much they’re asking for, or whether they’ve gotten any kind of response from the tech companies they’re applying to.
According to the letter, today’s average income for writers is $23,000.
The development of generative AI programs like ChatGPT and others threatens to further reduce that number, the authors argue.
‘AI threatens to damage our profession by flooding the market with mediocre, machine-written books, stories and journalism based on our work.
‘In the last decade or so, the income of writers has declined forty percent, and the current median income of full-time writers in 2022 will be just $23,000.
‘The introduction of AI threatens to make it more difficult, if not impossible, for writers—especially young writers and voices from under-represented communities—to earn a living from their profession.’
The authors are demanding that companies start seeking permission for copyrighted material in their AI programs and pay for past, present and future work.
Among those named in the letter is Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg. Mater AI plans are not yet known as others
Guild leaders recently met with Washington D.C. lawmakers to chart a fairer course.
‘We are still awaiting feedback from AI industry leaders.
In the meantime, we will be submitting our testimony on AI to the Senate IP Subcommittee at a hearing on 7/12.
A Guild spokesperson told Newstimesuk.com, ‘So we are pushing for legal regulation of AI.
The letter isn’t the only demand — or threat — from big tech or its leaders.
Earlier this year, comedian Sarah Silverman sued Meta and ChatGPT owner OpenAI for copyright infringement.
He joined a class action lawsuit that accused tech companies of creating programs that scrape ‘shadow libraries’ – illegal, pirated versions of books – and restore them online.
The Authors Guild said in its letter that companies would still be liable for copyright infringement if AI obtained their works from such libraries.
Actress Sarah Silverman sued Meta and OpenAI earlier this year for ‘scraping’ a pirated copy of her memoir from a shadow library.
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