Bestselling authors liken AI plans to 'theft' at expense of creative industries

The bestselling novelists Kate Mosse and Richard Osman have hit back at the government's apparent plan to give artificial intelligence companies broad freedoms to mine artistic works for data, saying it could destroy growth in creative fields and amount to theft.

- Robert Booth

They spoke out after the prime minister launched a national drive on Monday to make the UK "one of the great AI superpowers", and endorsed a 50-point action plan that included reform of how AI businesses could use copyrighted text and data to train their models.

The government had been consulting on whether to allow technology companies to hoover up massive quantities of writing, music and other creative works unless copyright holders actively opted out.

It is seen as a way of supercharging the growth of AI companies in the UK. Huge volumes of data are needed to train AI models and tech companies claim copyright laws create uncertainty that could hold back development.

But creatives want AI companies to pay, and were dismayed when Starmer said he backed calls for a system similar to the European Union, which requires copyright holders to opt out of the trawling process.