In the eyes of big AI companies such as OpenAI, the troves of data on the internet are highly valuable. They scrape photos, videos, books, blog posts, albums, painting, photographs and much more to train their products such as ChatGPT \u2013 usually without any compensation to or consent from the creators.<\/p>\n
In fact, OpenAI and Google are arguing that a part of American copyright law, known as the \u201cfair use doctrine\u201d, legitimises this data theft<\/a>. Ironically, OpenAI has also accused<\/a> other AI giants of data scraping \u201cits\u201d intellectual property.<\/p>\n First Nations communities around the world are looking at these scenes with knowing familiarity. Long before the advent of AI, peoples, the land, and their knowledges were treated in a similar way \u2013 exploited by colonial powers for their own benefit. <\/p>\n What\u2019s happening with AI is a kind of \u201cdigital colonialism<\/a>\u201d, in which powerful (mostly Western) tech giants are using algorithms, data and digital technologies to exert power over others, and take data without consent. But resistance is possible \u2013 and the long history of First Nations resistance demonstrates how people might go about it. <\/p>\n The fiction of terra nullius<\/p>\n Terra nullius is a Latin term that translates to \u201cno one\u2019s land\u201d or \u201cland belonging to no one\u201d. It was used by colonisers to \u201clegally\u201d \u2013 at least by the laws of the colonisers \u2013 lay claim to land. <\/p>\n The legal fiction of terra nullius in Australia was overturned in the landmark 1992 Mabo case<\/a>. This case recognised the land rights of the Meriam peoples, First Nations of the Murray Islands, as well as the ongoing connection to land of First Nations peoples in Australia. <\/p>\n In doing so, it overturned terra nullius in a legal sense, leading to the Native Title Act 1993<\/a>. <\/p>\n But we can see traces of the idea of terra nullius in the way AI companies are scraping billions of people\u2019s data from the internet.<\/p>\n It is as though they believe the data belongs to no one \u2013 similar to how the British wrongly believed the continent of Australia belonged to no one. <\/p>\n Digital colonialism dressed up as consent<\/p>\n While data is scraped without our knowledge, a more insidious way digital colonialism materialises is in the coercive relinquishing of our data through bundled consent. <\/p>\n Have you had to click \u201caccept all\u201d after a required phone update or to access your bank account? Congratulations! You have made a Hobson\u2019s choice<\/a>: in reality, the only option is to \u201cagree\u201d.<\/p>\n What would happen if you didn\u2019t tick \u201cyes\u201d, if you chose to reject this bundled consent? You might not be able to bank or use your phone. It\u2019s possible your healthcare might also suffer<\/a>. <\/p>\n It might appear you have options. But if you don\u2019t tick \u201cyes to all\u201d, you\u2019re \u201cchoosing\u201d social exclusion.<\/p>\n This approach isn\u2019t new. While terra nullius was a colonial strategy to claim resources and land, Hobson\u2019s choices are implemented as a means of assimilation into dominant cultural norms. Don\u2019t dress \u201cprofessionally\u201d? You won\u2019t get the job, or you\u2019ll lose the one you have. <\/p>\n Resisting digital terra nullius<\/p>\n So, is assimilation our only choice? <\/p>\n No. In fact, generations of resistance teach us many ways to fight terra nullius and survive. <\/p>\n Since colonial invasion, First Nations communities have resisted colonialism, asserting over centuries that it \u201calways was and always will be Aboriginal land\u201d.<\/p>\n Resistance is needed at all levels of society \u2013 from the individual to local and global communities. First Nations communities\u2019 survival proclamations and protests can provide valuable direction \u2013 as the Mabo case showed \u2013 for challenging and changing legal doctrines that are used to claim knowledge.<\/p>\n Resistance is already happening, with waves of lawsuits alleging AI data scraping violates intellectual property laws. For example, in October, online platform Reddit sued AI start-up Perplexity<\/a> for scraping copyrighted material to train its model. <\/p>\n In September, AI company Anthropic also settled<\/a> a class action lawsuit launched by authors who argued the company took pirated copies of books to train its chatbot \u2013 to the tune of US$1.5 billion.<\/p>\n