Artists’ Alliance Against AI-Slop: 800 Creatives Launch Campaign “Stealing Isn’t Innovation”
Around 800 artists, writers, actors, and musicians have joined a new campaign against what they describe as “large-scale theft” by AI companies, according to The Verge. Signatories of the campaign titled “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” include authors George Saunders and Jodi Picoult, actresses Cate Blanchett and Scarlett Johansson, and musicians such as the band R.E.M., Billy Corgan, and The Roots.
Warning Against Dominance of “AI Slop”
“Driven by fierce competition for dominance in new GenAI technology, profit-hungry tech companies, including some of the world’s richest, have copied vast amounts of creative content from the internet without authorizing or compensating the creators,” according to a press release. “This illegal appropriation of intellectual property promotes an information ecosystem dominated by misinformation, deepfakes, and a shallow artificial avalanche of inferior materials (‘AI Slop’).”
The Human Artistry Campaign is backing the initiative. It is a coalition of various organizations, including the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), unions for professional athletes, and unions for performing artists such as SAG-AFTRA. The campaign’s messages are set to appear in full-page advertisements in news media and on social media. Specifically, the campaign demands licensing agreements and “a healthy enforcement environment,” as well as the right for artists to opt out of having their works used to train generative AI.
Content Licensing Often an Accepted Compromise
At the federal level, President Donald Trump and his allies from the tech industry are attempting to control how U.S. states regulate AI, often punishing those seeking stricter regulations. At the industry level, tech companies and rights holders, once on opposing sides, are increasingly concluding licensing agreements that allow AI companies to use protected works.
Content licensing appears, at least for now, to be a solution both sides can live with. Major record labels, for example, have formed partnerships with AI music startups to make their catalogs available for AI remixes and model training. Digital publishers, some of which have sued AI companies training on their works, have advocated for a licensing standard that would allow media companies to prevent their content from appearing in AI search results. Some media companies have signed individual contracts with tech companies that allow AI chatbots to display news content.
