Jack Thorne, one of Britain\u2019s most successful screen and stage writers, has warned that some people in his profession are using AI \u201cto cheat\u201d, as he called for laws banning the secret use of the technology to generate scripts.<\/p>\n
Thorne, who co-wrote the hit Netflix drama Adolescence<\/a> and wrote the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child, said that \u201cwriters need to be squeaky clean\u201d in the face of AI models that \u201csteal\u201d the creative industry\u2019s work.<\/p>\n In a wide-ranging speech in London, Thorne attacked government inaction over the AI industry\u2019s mass-scraping of material to train their models. He said Keir Starmer\u2019s government had been \u201ca bit dazzled by tech\u201d and lamented a failure to protect the copyright of writers.<\/p>\n However, he also said he had heard worrying stories about the misuse of AI among writers that risked undermining the profession.<\/p>\n \u201cI have spoken to a number of execs and studio heads about their use of AI, and got hugely different responses, but what I did hear from them \u2013 and what anecdotally I\u2019ve heard from a few writers close to me \u2013 is that some in my profession are using AI to cheat,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat I\u2019m not talking about here is using AI to help \u2013 to discuss things with, to check for spelling errors or help with layout. I\u2019m talking about using AI as a replacement for endeavour, as a replacement for writing at all. Using prompts instead of writing words.<\/p>\n \u201cThat is, simply put, failing to write, they\u2019re cheating their employers in doing so, and they\u2019re cheating their fellow writers.\u201d<\/p>\n Thorne, who is the president of the Writers\u2019 Guild of Great Britain, warned that \u201cif publishers, studios, streamers, can point to the writer as the problem, that gives them the excuse to behave however they\u2019d like with content\u201d.<\/p>\n He added: \u201cPassing AI work off as your own needs to be unlawful. If you use AI to generate content and you do not declare it as such, then that is fraud and the companies you do it to should be entitled to prosecute you.<\/p>\n \u201cTo discourage it, the impact should be sizeable, and that requires laws but also us as an industry responding. Just as it should get you threatened with expulsion at university if you use it for essays, so it should have some professional impact on your career if you use it for text.\u201d<\/p>\n Thorne said broadcasters such as the BBC and Channel 4 should threaten sanctions against those found to have used AI to generate their work.<\/p>\n \u201cTo protect the most vulnerable, it is essential,\u201d he said. \u201cAs writers, what we are is what we make, and both the law and our industry should be absolutely crystal clear on that.\u201d<\/p>\n Thorne also said AI must not be allowed to impersonate actors, directors and writers.<\/p>\n He criticised inaction by the government to protect the intellectual property of writers from AI models and said the way ministers acted in the next five years \u201cwill define what the next hundred years looks like for every writer in this country\u201d.<\/p>\n Last year, Starmer\u2019s government abandoned a proposal<\/a> that would have required artists and copyright holders to actively opt out of having their material fed into AI systems, after a backlash<\/a>. Ministers instead held a consultation on the issue.<\/p>\n \u201cThere are so many things the government could be doing,\u201d Thorne said. \u201cCrucially, observation without intervention for fear of upsetting their apple cart could be replaced by observation with intervention for fear of upsetting our apple cart.<\/p>\n \u201cThe pieces of AI we use cannot be built using thievery. Cannot be built on a copyright crime. That\u2019s what government is there for, to set lines in an argument. While adaptation is probably necessary, legislating so that you are protecting us from the worst excesses is essential.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cThis requires government leadership. In fact, it requires our government to take global leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n A government spokesperson said: \u201cCopyright laws must protect the UK\u2019s position as a creative powerhouse while unlocking the extraordinary potential of AI-driven innovation. We are doing the work that\u2019s required to get the right outcomes so both the creative and technical sectors can flourish in this country.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jack Thorne, one of Britain\u2019s most successful screen and stage writers, has warned that some people in his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":624288,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":["post-624287","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-artificial-intelligence","tag-ai","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-artificialintelligence","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624287","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=624287"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624287\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/624288"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=624287"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=624287"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=624287"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}