Artificial Intelligence
Kate Bush, New Order, & Damon Albarn Among 1,000 UK Artists Protesting Government’s AI Stance With A Silent Album
Last week, the UK government proposed a new policy that would allow tech companies to use copyrighted works to train their artificial intelligence algorithms. Under the proposal, artists and companies could opt out of having their material used for AI, but it would otherwise give the companies unfettered access to people’s creative work without having to license anything. The proposal has incited widespread anger in the UK’s arts communities, and now a team of 1,000 British musicians has released a silent protest album called Is This What We Want?
The creative industries are fighting back against UK government proposals to let artificial intelligence companies use copyright-protected work without permission.
The latest protest is a silent album co-written by more than 1,000 musicians, including Kate Bush, and follows a statement signed by 48,000 creatives including Abba’s Björn Ulvaeus in which they warned of a “major, unjust threat” to artists’ livelihoods.
Writers, publishers, musicians, photographers, movie producers and newspapers have rejected the Labour government’s plan to create a copyright exemption to help artificial intelligence companies train their algorithms.
In a joint statement, bodies representing thousands of creatives dismissed the proposal made by ministers on Tuesday that would allow companies such as Open AI, Google and Meta to train their AI systems on published works unless their owners actively opt out.
Today, you can ask Microsoft Copilot to draw an AI-generated image of a strawberry pie for free, right from within Windows. But if you want to do the same thing in Microsoft Word, it will cost you at least 26 dollars per month. Does that make sense to you?
AI art has existed within Microsoft’s ecosystem since 2022, when Microsoft released its first beta of Microsoft Bing Image Creator. That later became Microsoft Designer, the design tool that Microsoft developed to compete against Canva. This week, Microsoft said that Designer’s AI art capabilities would roll out in several of its apps and services, including Photos, Word, and PowerPoint.
