Thom Yorke Joins Thousands of Artists in AI Protest

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In a significant move, approximately 11,500 artists—including acclaimed actors, authors, musicians, and novelists—have signed a statement urging an end to the unauthorized use of their creative works for training generative AI systems, like OpenAI’s ChatGPT. They characterize this practice as a profound threat to the livelihoods of content creators.

A brief open letter, only 29 words long, asserts: “The unauthorized use of creative works for training generative AI is a significant, unfair threat to the livelihoods of the individuals behind those works and should not be allowed.”

Notable signatories include Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, award-winning actors Julianne Moore and Kevin Bacon, Nobel Prize-winning author Kazuo Ishiguro, and ABBA co-founder Björn Ulvaeus.

Companies developing generative AI technologies typically utilize data scraped from the internet to enhance their models. This training data can encompass text, images, videos, music, and speech, which are essential for creating tools that simulate human-like conversations, produce visuals from written prompts, and even compose music—all from basic user instructions.

A major concern arises from the fact that much of this data has been collected without obtaining consent from the artists, and the tech companies have often failed to provide any form of compensation or credit. Developers of generative AI tools argue that their data collection practices are protected under “fair use” provisions in copyright law. However, an increasing number of creators are voicing their concerns, alleging copyright violations.

In the past year, a series of lawsuits related to these practices have emerged in U.S. courts, compelling companies like OpenAI to defend against copyright allegations. In an effort to preempt further legal challenges, a growing number of firms in the generative AI space are pursuing licensing agreements with media publishers. These deals aim to secure access to content for training purposes in return for compensation.

As generative AI continues to evolve, regulatory bodies are struggling to keep pace, indicating that it may take some time before this matter reaches a comprehensive resolution.