Hal-9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey

Skynet from Terminator

AUTO from WALL-E

Artificial Intelligence has been haunting the narrative of pop culture for years. It’s a villain, usually, acting as something non-human that’s purpose is to be better than human. In real life, AI isn’t always as quite as sinister. Real life generative AI forms computer programs, chatbots, and large language models (LLMs), and although there are serious ethical and business concerns surrounding the technology, it isn’t going to murder any astronauts.

The rapid rise in generative AI technology has left time for AI companies to work prior to having to follow and new and specific legal guidance or regulations. As we wait for legislation to adapt, the technology continues to adapt, grow, and become more prevalent in daily business life. This has lead to questions about data privacy, concerns over intellectual property rights and copyright infringement, and new arguments about the ethics of AI usage in academic, business, and creative ventures.

A significant portion of this concern centers around the way that the generative AI is trained, through a process called “data scraping,” where a computer program extracts data it finds online, copies the data to its own systems, and uses it—sometimes without the person or company the data comes from being aware. This data can also come from pirated content, which is one of the concerns currently being faced by the publishing industry.

To address the possibility of AI training data scraping it’s books and content, Penguin Random House has just announced a new policy  to The Bookseller. The move adds additional verbiage to Penguin Random House’s copyright text that aims to prevent generative AI and LLMs from using the materials published by Penguin Random House for training. The copyright will now state: “No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.” This new wording should not only work to help prevent the content from being used as training material, but should also help provide a legal argument against AI companies that violate what is laid out in the additional text.

This new policy clearly sums up one of the most pressing questions surrounding generative AI technology, a question of how to preserve intellectual property rights in the face of a technology that depends on using content to survive.

The role of generative AI in the creation of artistic works–art, literature, film, television, etc–remains to be seen, as some companies try to figure where, if anywhere, there is space for the technology. Undisclosed use of AI can lead to controversy; earlier in the year, Wizards of the Coast, the parent company behind tabletop gaming giants “Dungeons and Dragons” and “Magic the Gathering” found itself in controversy surrounding the use of AI-generated images in both sourcebooks and advertising material.

Penguin is the first of the “Big Five” publishers to alter their copyright protections with regards to generative AI.

References

Cover Image: Pavlov, I. Monitor Showing Java Programming. Photograph. [Online]. Available at:https://unsplash.com/photos/monitor-showing-java-programming-OqtafYT5kTw. [Accessed 19 10 2024]

2001: A Space Odyssey. [Online]. IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0062622/ [Accessed 19 10 2024]

Battersby, M. 2024. Penguin Random House Underscores Copyright Protection in AI Rebuff. The Bookseller. [Online]. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/news/penguin-random-house-underscores-copyright-protection-in-ai-rebuff. [Accessed 19 10 2024]

Lloyd, S. 2024. The Publishing Industry’s AI Imperative. The Bookseller. [Online]. Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/the-publishing-industrys-ai-imperative. [Accessed 19 10 2024]

Schubladze, S. 2023. Web Scraping: What It Is And How Companies Can Leverage It. Forbes. [Online]. Available at: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2023/01/03/web-scraping-what-it-is-and-how-companies-can-leverage-it/. [Accessed 19 10 2024]

The Terminator. [Online]. IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088247/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1%5BAccessed 19 10 2024]

WALL·E. [Online]. IMDb. Available at: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0910970/?ref_=nv_sr_srsg_1_tt_6_nm_2_in_0_q_wall%2520e [Accessed 19 10 2024]