🔗 Share this article

The single biggest danger to the career of writers and, by extension, to our society is far from being distracted audiences. Rather, it is artificial intelligence.

British literary sector – worth exceeding £11bn – has stood idle while big tech scraped intellectual property from the internet to train their algorithms. Not long ago, an AI startup settled a massive copyright case, but the ship has clearly departed, and big tech is advancing with the materials.

Being both a literary agent and chief executive of one of the largest firms in Europe, I think this is an issue everyone should take seriously – not due to we fear progress, but because we want to preserve human expression. Without the core quality that makes us human – the gift to think like humans, create stories and imagine new worlds – we will live in a lesser world.

Countless acclaimed authors have written about why narratives are the lifeblood of society and how a creator’s role is to tell perspectives we do not always want to hear. Collaborating with authors like William Boyd and prominent storytellers, I have witnessed directly where great writing emerges.

Good writing is not a reproduction of existing content. It is a fusion consisting of personal experience, experienced trauma and grasped one’s historical context; it is the outcome of vision, craft and obsession.

The compulsion to write is not a behavior that can be instilled – it is a calling that descends on the writer. Truly dedicated writers must write. They may use editing tools and AI tools, but few things would be more abhorrent to a creator than an idea being served up to them on their computer that they were then expected to “personalize”.

Not Every Automation Is Bad

Tools which supplant the creator, or that will work with them honestly, is potentially beneficial. An artist needed for reshoots may authorise use of the footage to finish a project. It might cut budget, environmental impact and production time. A researcher may opt to streamline their research by programming their personal AI tools. Language tools could broaden the availability of global stories, enriching our collective knowledge.

Such uses are worthy of dialogue. But it should be a conversation and be clear to the end user. Up to now, work has often been taken without compensation, and there are insufficient guardrails on distributors, media firms, and publishing houses.

How Should We Do?

We could start with some fundamental rules for all to adopt. A creator’s bill of rights for AI that guarantees two fundamental rights: permission and acknowledgment.

• No AI system should be trained on an artist’s work without their unambiguous, knowing consent.
• AI firms should be required to publish the training materials they have used, and be transparent so that copyright holders know when their creations have been incorporated.
• A writer should also be allowed to withdraw their work without obstruction – without having to discover the choice hidden beneath lengthy documents of legal fine print.

In cases where an artist finds that AI tools is misrepresenting the meaning of their output so that it is distorted from the authentic work, they should be empowered to withdraw permission for its application.

We should also introduce a identification standard – akin to GM food labels – that restrict distributors from offering AI-generated content without unambiguous attribution. Similarly, copyright must be reinforced, and this can only be done at the government tier and even on an international level – a multinational agreement.

Finally, tech companies should not be allowed to cite “exemption clauses” to defend their collecting of protected content. This poses a real danger to the protection of creative ownership. It undermines the original intention of the “fair use” defense, which was designed for researchers to quote without payment a certain limited amount from published content.

A few straightforward guidelines could look especially urgent, but they may affect how your children learn, how historical accounts are told, and how we understand humanity itself.