This decision may well be the largest and most far-reaching resolution in the history of humanity. It is one that will affect everyone.
And then think about what kind of person you would trust to make such a decision, on behalf of us all?
Would you choose Rupert Murdoch? And would you allow him to carry out behind close doors the negotiations on which this decision will be based?
In fact, you don’t have to choose, because Murdoch has already put himself forward for the job and the talks started some time ago.
The decision in question is this. What should be the relationship between our existing culture – everything written, drawn, composed, sung, performed and photographed, and the companies that own the emerging artificial intelligence technology?
AI has the capacity to suck in words, images and sounds, at lightening speed. Reprocessing takes milliseconds and ‘new’ stories, poems, pictures, songs and material combining elements ‘borrowed’ from a multitude of sources are regurgitated. AI replicates the human creative process, but on an automated, industrial scale and at such speed and scope that it is hard to conceptualise.
Until now, in almost all countries, the default assumption has been the person who creates ‘a work’, or their employer, is entitled to benefit from the sale of that work. If I write an article, I can decide to whom I sell it, and for how much. A painter can sell their painting. A singer can sell a recording of their voice.
AI upends this process. So complex is the means by which ChatGPX and Bard blends material together, that the originals on which ‘new’ material it is based are unfathomable. They are, of course, there however. Until now the potential of AI has attracted both dystopian and panglossian visions of its impact – somewhere in the near future. Last week, however, it became clear that talks to determine how the owners of existing culture will be compensated are already at an advanced stage.
On Friday, The Financial Times reported that News Corp, Axel Springer, The New York Times and The Guardian had all been in talks with the main AI owners. “The deals could involve media organisations being paid a subscription-style fee for their content in order to develop the technology underpinning chatbots such as OpenAI’s ChatGPT and Google’s Bard”, stated the paper.
Full marks to the media moguls for spotting their opportunity – but their initiative raises profound issues. For example, few of them own the copyright in everything they publish. What arrangements will there be to compensate the many photographers and writers who licence their works for use only by the platform on which they are published? This group, incidentally, is far more numerous in Europe where many employed creators retain rights in their work.
But the repercussions from these talks extend far beyond the news media. A deal struck by the major publishers – the first of its kind with the AI giants – could be the only financial concession that is wrung from these emerging behemoths. At very least, it will establish the pattern for all that follows.
Some might think that the Australian media mogul’s track record suggests someone who will put humanity’s concerns before his own commercial and political interests? In my capacity, as a representative of 600,000 journalists around the world, I submit that a more democratic and pluralistic approach is required.
You might wonder, of course, what has brought the AI giants to this particular negotiating table? Herein lies another concern about these private talks. Owners of the world’s major news platforms might well welcome a significant new revenue stream. But once the cash pipeline from AI to themselves is established, what forum will there be for the multitudinous creative minnows to complain that their income has disappeared?
Whatever deal is struck cannot be left to media companies alone. There must be representatives of individual journalists, and all other creators, at the table and with equal status. The entire process should form part of an international, democratic discussion about how humanity can benefit from AI and how we can regulate its operation.
In the realm of small, individual creators, there are already models, known as collecting societies, from which individuals benefit from collectively raised funds mostly when their works are photocopied. It would be easy to replicate or develop these for AI.
Such is the potential of AI, that such an arrangement, negotiated in the interests of all, could usher in a new age of creativity. News platforms would be financially buttressed and individual creatives in every sphere could enjoy a basic income to underwrite their endeavours. The number of creators of all kinds might well multiply and initiate a new golden age of human expression.
Leave these critical decisions to a self-selecting handful of corporate bosses, deliberating in secret, however, and I doubt that a formula to achieve this is the one upon which they settle.
Tim Dawson is Deputy General Secretary of the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), representing 600,000 journalists in 150 countries around the world.