The Trades Union Congress (TUC) a federation of trade unions across England and Wales that includes Equity and Bectu, has called for an independent regulator to oversee and regulate the integration of AI into society and work and the creation of a creative industry AI taskforce.
The taskforce would bring together creative workers, unions and technologists to navigate collaboration between tech companies and the creative industries.
The TUC manifesto includes calls for transparency of AI training data to ensure workers know whether their data or image are being used; citing sources and labelling content to maintain differentiation of AI generated work from human-created content; and an opt-in system to protect creative work from commercial data mining unless workers give their permission and consent.
Further proposals in the manifesto include ensuring creative workers are paid fairly for their work when their creative work is used to train AI models, including both past and future appropriation; new likeness rights to protect creative workers from ‘deep fakes’ using their image and voice without permission; and stronger rights for creative industries workers to be attributed as authors or performers of their work.
The UK government is cementing its copyright and AI framework, following consultation with industry which closed last month. It has proposed a new exemption in copyright law that would allow tech companies to train their AI models on creative works including films, TV shows and audio recordings without permission, unless creators actively opt out, to which the TUC is opposed.
The creative industries are worth £125bn to the UK economy. There are around 2.4 million jobs in the creative industries, around 7% of all UK jobs.
“The government should change direction on current proposals and go further to protect creative workers and safeguard the future of the creative industries. The sector is a jewel in the crown of our economy and vital for growth,” said TUC general secretary Paul Nowak. “The clock is ticking. Without proper guardrails put in place, rapacious tech bosses will continue to cash in on creatives’ work without their consent.”
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