Over 25,000 artists and cultural workers have signed a new petition that includes a simple one-line message: Must not be allowed. ”
The brief statement was written by Ed Newton Rex, a music composer and former executive at Stability AI, who said the company uses copyrighted creations to train its AI as “fair use.” He resigned last year because he objected to the use of the site for free.
Artists such as painter Amoako Boafo, Cecilia Vicuna, Joan Greenbaum, and Joanna Pousett Dart. Photographer Lynn Goldsmith. Among the signatories are ABBA’s Bjorn Ulvaeus, actor Kevin Bacon and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, as well as illustrator Ani Masic. Newton Rex first posted the petition on X on Tuesday, October 22, with 10,000 signatures. Anyone can sign the statement.
Newton-Rex said the petition was published now “at a critical time for creators” to protect their work.
“Many AI companies are building their products by incorporating the life’s work of writers, musicians, artists, actors, photographers, and other creative people, without compensation or permission.” Newton Rex he told Hyperallergic in a statement.
Earlier this year, a California judge ruled that a class action lawsuit brought by a group of artists against Stability AI, Midjourney, and Deviant AI could continue despite the companies’ efforts to block the lawsuit. Other artists are using the courts to claim copyright protection for their AI-generated art.
Tim Flack, president of the British Society of Photographers, known for his wildlife and animal photography, including his Dog Gods series, told Hyperallergic that he has experienced “first-hand” copying of his photographic style. Flack said he is also a plaintiff in a class action lawsuit against several AI companies.
Tim Flack’s “Flying Mop” (2011) (Photo by Tim Flack)
In a statement to Hyperallergic, Flach said the “uninvited exploitation” resulting from training AI models on copyrighted works “is an economic loss for artists, harms our livelihoods, and It threatens our very existence.”
“We urgently need policymakers who support our concerns and to seek permission and pay reparations from the tech companies that perpetrate this widespread and pervasive commercial exploitation,” Flack said. Ta.
The long message is often signed by members of creative fields such as musicians, writers and visual artists, but it is also supported by a number of academics, including Gregory Cantor, associate professor of ancient history at the University of Oxford.
In a statement to Hyperallergic, Kanter said “cheaply made” AI models are raising the barrier to entry for the next generation of academics and artists.
“AI is not going to write history books like an Oxford professor or paint like Picasso,” Kanter said. “But it takes years of routine work and on-the-job training for the next generation of top artists and scholars to emerge. An economic system that excludes necessarily means there is no next generation.”
The statement comes as the UK invests more than $1 billion in AI projects. Mr Kanter said he found it strange that Britain was “effectively subsidizing California’s technology industry at the expense of an area in which this country holds international importance”. .
Newton-Rex said his hugely popular one-sentence petition was not directed at anyone in particular, but rather expressed “the creator’s thoughts on the issue.”
“And it’s very clear what they’re thinking,” Newton-Rex said.
