ALCS welcomes the Government’s intention to seek legislation on AI in the King’s Speech. Regulating AI will mark an important shift in the relationship between the tech industry and UK creatives, particularly in relation to copyright infringement. The speech stated that the new Government will: “seek to establish the appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models.”

While we await further details, we urge the Government to ensure creators’ views are heard and work with us and our partners in the creative sector to ensure that AI does not continue to be developed at the expense of creators, and instead is guided by principles of fair remuneration, transparency and control.

Earlier, this year, the House of Lords Communications and Digital Committee conducted an inquiry into large language models and generative AI, while the House of Commons Science, Innovation and Technology Committee led an inquiry into generative AI. Both called for the Government to support copyright and broker a fair, sustainable solution based around a licensing framework governing the use of copyrighted material to train AI models, which is what we would hope to see taken forwards.

We look forward to working with the Government to ensure creators are appropriately protected, and able to verify if their work is being used without permission. We want to ensure that the conversation around AI and its policies is not narrowly focused on innovation above all else, but considers instead its limitations and potential impact on the irreplaceable value provided by UK creators. We hope that the AI bill can be an opportunity for the tech and creative industries to collaborate and boost the economy, rather than one reap the value from another without permission or compensation.

ALCS CEO Barbara Hayes said: “Many of our members are understandably concerned about the misuse of generative AI and what it means for their work and livelihoods. So, we are pleased to see the new Government announce its intention to place requirements on those developing such models. As we wait for further details as to what this will look like, we urge the Government to ensure this legislation adheres to the principles we have laid out, which include authors’ rights to remuneration, transparency and control.”

Alongside demands for AI to respect copyright rules, ALCS has developed a set of principles that any future policy in this area should adhere to. This includes the requirement for authors to be compensated for use of their work, transparency around uses of authors’ works, that technological developments should not be seized upon as a circumvention of creators’ rights, and that stakeholders must fully acknowledge the limitations of AI. You can read our principles on authors and AI in full here.

We are currently consulting our members to better understand their views on AI.

Echoing the views of many members, one anonymous respondent said: “The current situation with the use of AI is unnecessarily obscure and secretive. There needs to be complete transparency with how AI is trained, and strict limitations on its planned and actual usage. Any use of texts in the training of AI should be done with the full consent of the author or rightsholder, and with suitable compensation and credit to the original creator. Otherwise, it’s just IP theft, and will likely negatively impact on future earnings.”

Away from AI, we are also pleased to see the Government announce its priority to encourage workforce re-entry by widening opportunities, raising educational standards, and promoting child well-being.

As we await to see how the Government intends to achieve this, we would have liked to see greater focus dedicated to early years provision, particularly primary school libraries and a wider acknowledgement that reading for both learning and pleasure is vital for the health and prosperity of our young people and the wider economy.

Whilst we are pleased to hear in the Kings Speech that the Employment Rights Bill will seek to introduce a new deal for working people to ban exploitative practices and enhance employment rights, we believe this is a missed opportunity to establish a dedicated Freelancer Commissioner and support this vital part of the UK workforce.

You can read more about our campaigning work here.