Sir Lucian Grainge, the Chairman and CEO of Common Music Group, has penned an op-ed for The Occasions calling for “acceptable guardrails” on AI know-how.
The UMG boss’s missive comes amid controversy over the British Labour authorities’s proposed modifications to copyright legal guidelines, a part of an effort to make the UK aggressive in AI growth.
Among the many modifications is a proposal to create an “opt-out” system for using copyrighted works in coaching AI.
That proposal – just like one adopted as a part of the European Union’s complete AI legislation – would enable AI builders to make use of copyrighted content material by default, except a rightsholder expressly states that they object.
That rule “revers[es] the very precept of copyright legislation,” stated Ed Newton-Rex, founding father of moral AI certification non-profit Pretty Skilled, and organizer of the “Silent Album” launch earlier this week.
Greater than 1,000 artists, together with Damon Albarn, Kate Bush, and Annie Lennox, collaborated on the silent album as a protest in opposition to the UK’s proposed modifications.
In his Occasions column, Grainge known as the silent album protest “a warning in opposition to the impression of unchecked AI on the artistic arts,” and stated it asks “onerous” questions.
“How can we finest shield artistic and imaginative invention, and harness the facility of latest know-how with out that know-how harnessing us? How can we finest shield the incentives that reward artistic folks for his or her labour and genius? And who wins or loses if we alter the principles of the sport?”
Grainge careworn that he isn’t against AI know-how as such, and even its involvement in music.
“On no account am I suggesting that AI is intrinsically adverse. This extraordinary know-how holds the potential to revolutionise scientific and medical analysis, improve creative creativity and contribute to numerous different areas that might materially enhance our lives,” he wrote.
“However know-how itself can by no means know proper from incorrect; it’s a device to assist us, to counterpoint us, sure, however provided that we information it with acceptable guardrails. The alternatives we make about AI now — moral, authorized and technological — will reverberate for many years to come back.”
“The alternatives we make about AI now — moral, authorized and technological — will reverberate for many years to come back.”
Sir Lucian Grainge, Common Music Group
Grainge highlighted that “change is a continuing” within the music business. “Throughout my lengthy profession, we’ve got gone from vinyl to cassette to CD to MP3s to ad-funded streaming to subscriptions… However all through all these improvements and disruptions one fact has remained fixed: nice music at all times flows from human creativity. This fact ought to proceed to information us, even within the age of AI.”
Final week, Grainge joined Sony Music Group Chairman Rob Stringer and Warner Music Group CEO Robert Kyncl in a Each day Mail-led marketing campaign in opposition to the copyright modifications.
Earlier this week, a information report from the Guardian instructed that the music firm bosses’ marketing campaign, and the silent album protest, could have had an impression on the plans being put ahead by the federal government of Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer.
The federal government is claimed to be contemplating modifications to its proposals that may restrict or eradicate the “opt-out” precept. One possibility, the Guardian reported, can be to restrict the “opt-out” clause UK AI builders alone. AI firms within the US and elsewhere would wish permission prematurely to make use of copyrighted supplies for coaching.
Another choice can be to permit artistic industries to decide out of AI coaching by default, however would enable mass media, reminiscent of newspapers and TV, for use in coaching AI by default, the Guardian reported.
Stress on the federal government is coming from inside Parliament as effectively.
The heads of two parliamentary teams – the Science, Innovation and Expertise Committee, and the Tradition, Media and Sport Committee – despatched a letter to cupboard ministers this week, urging the federal government to alter focus from loosening copyright guidelines, to making sure larger transparency by AI firms within the supplies they use to coach their fashions.
Grainge concluded his Occasions column by noting that “Ingenuity has at all times been one of many UK’s superpowers, from the steam engines that powered the Industrial Revolution to the Beatles who formed world tradition by way of music”.
He additionally added that “’progress” is “by no means inevitable and applied sciences do go awry, normally as a result of unexpected penalties, the abdication of ethical accountability or a failure of leaders to ascertain affordable public safeguards”.
Added Grainge: “AI will remodel society, however the way it transforms society is as much as us. That’s why governments, industries and creators should work in concord, looking for equity and compromise to chart a path towards accountable AI.”Music Enterprise Worldwide
