The U.K. government is consulting on an opt-out copyright regime for AI training that would require rights holders to take active steps if they don’t want their intellectual property to become free AI training fodder.
The rise of generative AI models that are trained on vast quantities of data has brought intellectual property concerns to the forefront, with many creatives up in arms that their work is being processed without permission (or compensation) to train AI technologies that can churn out competing output — whether text, visuals or audio, or a combination of all three.
The visual arts, music, film production, and video games all look to be viable targets for GenAI, which replaces traditional (skilled human) production processes with highly scalable AI tools that rely on a system of prompting to trigger models to instantly generate output that’s based on statistical analysis of information patterns in their training data.
With global attention fixed on large language models (LLMs) such as OpenAI’s GPT, which underpins the popular ChatGPT chatbot, the days of AI startups quietly scraping the web to grab free training data for model developing without anyone noticing or caring are over.
Deals are being struck by AI companies to license certain types of content to use for training data. At the same time, a growing number of lawsuits are challenging unlicensed used of IP for AI training.
The situation demands legal clarity, at the least, and that’s what the U.K. government says it hopes this consultation will help deliver as lawmakers consider how they may shape policy in this (fraught) area. Future U.K. policymaking could include legislation “to provide legal certainty,” although the government says it has yet to decide on that.
For now, ministers are seeking to tread a line between claiming the government wants to support the U.K.’s creative sector and a stated desire to boost AI investment and uptake. But this framing looks like an attempt to fudge a position that favors the AI industry.
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