TUC

The need to protect writers due to the growth of artificial intelligence

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Published date

11 Sep 2024

In a recent talk on the national Eisteddfod field, Manon Eames from the Writers’ Guild spoke about her concerns as a result of the growth of artificial intelligence and its impact on workers and culture. Here she outlines the problems and possible solutions to AI and writers.

AI is already impacting on creatives

As a union we care about the impact of the use of artificial intelligence - AI - on the creative sector in general terms, as well as on our members in particular.

This is not something that will happen in the future – it is happening now. It is true to say that creatives in the media - reporting, performing, music and writing etc - are already affected by the rapid and uncontrolled growth of AI.

AI developers have been training their language machines by clawing or mining data from the web – unknown to the original creator and without their permission, trampling on copyright rules. Also, the “new” product does not indicate where AI has been used

AI can result in less work for writers

All of this is having a devastating effect on writers:
• there is a possibility that the use of AI will mean less work for writers, impacting on their pay and fees,
• diluting the creative industry’s contribution to the nation’s economy and national identity.

According to a Wales TUC report, unauthorized use of the work of musicians and actors has already created a situation in which their work and talents have effectively been stolen - and often unbeknown to them.

For example, an actor’s voice is used to read an audio book totally without his knowledge. And the deep fake Taylor Swift case back in January this year underlines one of the other points in the report about the ability of AI to create credible images of events that have not occurred and thus have a devastating effect on the individuals involved. And also the credibility of news sources

From a writer’s point of view, currently the Writers’ Guild does not feel that AI is close to being able to replace, entirely, the ingenuity, energy, intelligence, empathy and unique creativity of the human being who is a professional writer – so far.

Read the TUC's guide for reps on generative AI in the workplace

The Effects of Artificial Intelligence on the Welsh Language

There is a particular reason to be concerned in Wales about translation and the impact of translation algorithms on our opportunities to work and on our culture and language too.

“There is already evidence that some producers of English/Welsh back-to-back television series have been ignoring the union translation agreements and translating scripts ‘in-house’, sometimes hurriedly, and to uncertain standards (an issue we are currently campaigning about).

This is extremely insulting and often means that the Welsh version is clumsy and linguistically poor on screen.

How the effects of AI in the creative industry need to be addressed

In order to secure a better future as a result of AI, we as a union are campaigning for the following changes:

•    AI developers must be regulated, and transparency measures introduced, payments to the original authors, and clear labelling of AI products.
•    A new AI regulatory body must be established. At the moment the broad legal position is a bit of a patchwork so it’s rather like the Wild West and there’s no clear enough control for companies to be transparent about what they’ve used.
•    Copyright protections must also be maintained and enhanced. The Government needs to help ensure that developers have an understanding of copyright law.

We also ask for a "Right to Human Review" i.e. if AI is used to make decisions - e.g. with benefits and tax etc. - which are extremely important to freelancers - there should be a simple system and appeal rights overseen by a human being. The individual should be able to know whether a decision has been made by AI or not.

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