META stole Books for their AI (and yours might be there)
Hi everyone and welcome back to another post on my blog!
This time we are going to speak about a news that has recently spread out (and rightfully so) in the Bookish community. META has in fact been the talk of week after it was revealed the giant has stolen thousands of writings from multiple authors (being indie, self or journals) with the purpose to train their AI (more on The Atlantic).
The mess has reached BookTok and multiple authors (some still currently discovering about the matter), urging people to take actions with their government and with a class action currently being done against META. One of the desires is for every author affected by META’s activity to be repaid for all their stolen writing, something the team didn’t want to do and so opted for pirating books in order to save money.
Despite the class action appears to be inclusive of every author whose book has been taken from the Database, there are still debates about their influence out of the US. The “fair use” argument used to explain this latest theft, for example, would not be valid in the UK were scrapping for economical advantages is illegal under our laws.
As an author myself who has found her work in the LibGen database (used by META to train their AI) it is scary and horrible to read about the latest theft. While we cannot fully escape pirating (and wouldn’t even blame you for doing so), it is completely different when a giant does so to save money authors will never see in their entire lifetime. It is even worst when these writings are used to train AI (something who is being used to steal voices and expressions from authors) and their jobs too. A machine fabricating words in a matter of seconds will never reach the amount of care, work, research and imagination from a writer. Yet now authors are being side-lined as if their job is nothing at all.
The Author’s Guild has brought forward a statement with suggestions for everyone who would like to help (being themselves authors or not):
- If you are an author impacted by the LibGen database write to META and AI companies about this (the guild provided a template for it)
- If eligible join the Author’s Guild and keep the fight active
- Get your work certified as a human creation
- If you want to join our fight, sign the Statement on AI training (I did it too!)
- Whether you are an author or not, write your MP asking them to fight with us against AI
Hoping for better news and a brighter post.
Marianna