UK Government White Paper on AI Regulation – PA Consultation Response

The Publishers Association has responded to the government’s white paper on the regulation of AI. Dan Conway, CEO at the Publishers Association said:

“Today we have responded to the government’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) consultation. As a sector, we stand ready to support further innovation and look forward to what the future looks like for publishing, but big questions remain unanswered.

Our authors are the heartbeat of our industry and we support their creativity and authorship in the strongest possible terms. AI must be used to enhance that creativity, and technological advancements and authorship must co-exist in a forward-looking and thriving publishing sector.

“The scope of this particular consultation did not include intellectual property (IP) and in our response to the government today we’ve been clear that IP needs to be at the centre of AI regulatory thinking. It is imperative that AI LLMs adhere to existing law, are transparent about any copyrighted content ingested, and seek to license that content from the rightsholder in the normal way. Investing in reputable data will build better systems, which in turn will help to fulfil the government’s welcome commitment to transparency, accountability and safety.

“Today is only the beginning of working out how the publishing sector can respond to this transformative technological advancement and we look forward to working with our AI taskforce members and those in the wider publishing and book sector to make sure that we get this right”