Creative and media workers are concerned that employers are using AI to impersonate their work and profit off their efforts, a senate inquiry has been told.
During a hearing of the Senate Select Committee on Adopting Artificial Intelligence on July 16, representatives from the Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance (MEAA) spoke about the challenges facing the creative industry.
Cooper Mortlock, a voice actor and an MEAA member, spoke about his own experience, where he alleged that an employer used AI to reproduce his voice for a project without his consent.
“I was doing some work for a client for an animated series on YouTube, so I provided voice work for the character,” he said.
“When we reached about episode 30 of the promised 52 episodes, our producer cancelled the contract, saying we’ve decided to discontinue making this series.
“A year after the contract had finished, they released another episode of this series using what was obviously AI copies of my voice and the other actors’ voices.”
Mr. Mortlock said the employer did not ask for his permission nor compensate him, prompting the voice actor to contact the media union for help.
However, he was unable to demand the employer take the videos down, as he could not produce proof that his voice was reproduced by AI.
MEAA Campaigns Director Paul Davies gave another example of a journalist member of the MEAA, who was allegedly asked by a publisher to lend her voice to an AI production process that would then be used in multiple languages.
By doing so, the publisher could reproduce her personality, her diction, and her presentation for a media product.
Proposed Solutions for AI Creative Theft
To address the issue of creative theft, Matt Byrne, another MEAA representative, said his organisation was seeking changes to industrial relations laws to ensure that all workers were consulted when AI tools were going to be used in their workplace.“It’s a choice of these businesses to adopt tools in a systematic way to do the kinds of things that they want to do,” he said.
“If they do want to do it, then it’s our view that it should be mandated that they consult and work with the employees on how these tools will work to ensure that the tool can be used ethically.”
Mr. Byrne also suggested that content generated by AI should be watermarked or labelled so that people could be aware of its origin.
“It’s our view that the social responsibility for content produced by AI should lie with both the company that oversees its production as well as AI developers,” he said.
“So we want to make sure that there is accountability at both the developer end, so OpenAI, Amazon, Google etc., but also with the companies who use these tools in their workplaces.”
Meanwhile, John Mackenney, a director at software giant Adobe, said there should be a remedy for artists to bring legal action against those who intentionally misused AI’s tools to create digital content that impersonated artists’ work for commercial gain.
“One of the biggest concerns that we have heard from our customers and in the creative community has been around the misappropriation of image, likeness, voice and artistic style,” he said.
The director also said it was important for governments to establish a unified global framework to govern the responsible development and use of AI.
“The reach of AI technology is borderless, and therefore, international harmonisation of well-considered protections will be key to responsible AI development,” he said.
MEAA Proposes ‘AI Tax’
Apart from creative theft, the MEAA was also concerned about creative and media workers getting replaced by AI.The MEAA argued that workers often lacked bargaining power, and the introduction of AI could speed up consolidation among major companies.
This, in turn, made it more difficult for workers to benefit from the adoption of AI, the trade union claimed.
The MEAA then proposed implementing an “AI tax” on businesses that replaced their employees with digital tools.
During the inquiry, Mr. Davies said the income of the creative workforce was already ridiculously low and that the advent of AI would make the matter worse.
“There needs to be some way of reclaiming the productivity benefits that AI may or may not achieve,” he told the Committee.
Expert’s View on AI-Enabling Creative Theft
Ian Oppermann, the former New South Wales government’s chief data scientist, said the issue was a major legal challenge for the creative industry.“New AI tools not only allow the reproduction of a performance, but the creation of additional material from just a sample of the recording of a performance,” he told The Epoch Times.
“This can be done very convincingly in the style of the performer and is arguable ‘new’ material without the need for direct involvement by the performer.
“This goes well beyond the idea of post-production, and is a very different paradigm from what copyright and IP laws have tried to protect against.”
Mr. Oppermann also noted that the adoption of AI in the sector had significantly disadvantaged artists and required a rethinking of the “value” of a creative act and the definition of “consent.”
“It is hard to see how anyone can take a recording of someone else’s voice or performance and use this very personal information without the consent of the performer,” he said.
“AI has advanced so quickly. We are constantly surprised by the advancing capabilities and what it is able to do.”
While there were problems with the use of AI in the creative field, the former chief scientist did not think that the technology would be banned as it could increase productivity, and tackle complex issues.
“What can be done is to recognise the importance of the creative act and limit future uses unless explicitly consented to,” he said.
