Creative Industries

Debate between Max Wilkinson and Pete Wishart

Monday 27th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Max Wilkinson (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The Minister referred to his greatest creative output, which apparently is hitting bookshelves soon. I am afraid I cannot match that—a Jaffa Cake haiku, which was cruelly overlooked by the McVitie’s marketing department, and a local news story about gnomes being banned from the graveyard in Wrington in north Somerset are as good as I can muster.

The creative industries are the lifeblood of our nation’s cultural wellbeing, and we neglect them at our peril. We must never ignore the voices of creators themselves. This weekend, many of us will have been disturbed to see the interview given by Paul McCartney about the challenge that AI poses to the creative industries and to creators.

The Government are correct to pursue artificial intelligence as a route to solving problems in our public services, boosting economic growth and creating new jobs. Nobody would argue with suggestions for speeding up and improving NHS treatment, removing pointless interactions with local councils or smoothing out bureaucracy for businesses in their interactions with Government Departments. In the creative arts, however, we have a very different challenge, and the Government must not put at risk the value of human creativity.

I will make no luddite arguments in this House—as the MP for the constituency that is home to the most influential cyber-cluster outside London, that would be daft. I am pro-business and pro-technology, as are the Liberal Democrats. I regard myself as a techno-optimist. Innovation is not just desirable but necessary. However, it is not an absolute, particularly when we are discussing threats to human creativity. I know that because my constituency is home not just to a cyber-cluster, but to a creative powerhouse. Cheltenham festivals bring visitors from around the world.

Because we are a creative powerhouse, I receive plenty of communication from creatives in Cheltenham. Robin, a composer, told me that he could no longer advise young creatives to rely on a job in the industry, because it simply will not pay. He told me that things will get worse if the changes to copyright go through. Let us consider for a moment the ability of the human mind to compose a tear-jerking piece of music, or of the delicate human hand to paint an evocative landscape or write prose to persuade, inspire, or move the reader. That is innately human. Such creative endeavour can and does change the world. It brings us growth, and so much more besides.

There is no doubt that technology has an important and positive role to play in this process, and it is already doing so. Technology and creative content must work side by side, but if original human creators are not compensated by default, we risk a future not of glorious, creative technicolour but of many shades of pale grey. Some have already warned that we risk a future of infinite pale grey, in which there is no incentive for humans to initiate any creative process whatsoever. It would be a dereliction of duty by Members of this House if they failed to engage with that risk as part of this discussion and the ongoing discussion about AI.

Last week, along with other MPs, some of whom are in the Chamber this evening, I joined a meeting with a tech company and one of its social media creators. I will not name the company or the creator; that would not be fair and would not add much to the debate. We were told of the huge growth potential for creators that the online and social media world presented. We were told that creators are employing teams of people to produce their content—a big jobs boost. During the discussion, they were asked what happens to jobs growth when a creator’s work is crawled by AI to the extent that it is reproduced hundreds, thousands or even an infinite number of times. If an answer came, however, it was not comprehensive or persuasive.

The mood music suggests that the Government and big tech firms favour an opt-out approach for creators, placing burdens on individual musicians, artists and writers to protect their work. I asked an expert about the potential risks of an opt-out approach and received an illuminating answer. The expert told me:

“For human creators, an opt-in model generally offers stronger protection.”

The first reason for that was control, as

“creators retain explicit control over how their work is used by AI”.

The second was compensation, as

“An opt-in system could be linked to licensing agreements, allowing creators to receive compensation for the use of their work in AI training”.

[Pete Wishart]

I am listening very carefully to the hon. Gentleman, and he is spot on about some of the dangers and threats posed to the sector by generative AI. Does he agree that there is a way to do this that could benefit and serve both AI and the creative industries, but that it will not involve a clearly unworkable opt-out approach? Indeed, it has never been explained how exactly that would work. Will he encourage other colleagues to look at working together to ensure we get a solution for both sectors?

[Max Wilkinson]

The hon. Gentleman is entirely right. I agree that the concepts of opt-out and opt-in need to be pursued at greater length.

Thirdly, the expert told me that the preservation of value offered stronger protection:

“By requiring explicit permission, an opt-in model helps maintain the value of original creative works.”

The expert did point out two drawbacks. First, an opt-in approach has potential drawbacks in the form of an extra administrative burden on creators. Interestingly, this expert’s second listed drawback was that an opt-in model would place limits on AI’s ability to gather data for training and development, which does not seem to me like much of a drawback for creators.

I asked that very same expert what would happen if creators lost their intellectual property rights to AI. The expert told me there was a risk of

“a loss of income and motivation, a devaluation of creative work, ethical concerns, legal uncertainty”

and, intriguingly, “domination by AI operators.” I use the word “intriguingly” because this expert seems aware of its own power—the expert was Google Gemini.

At this stage, those considerations are unknowns, and there is much uncertainty. Google Gemini is pulling information produced mostly thanks to human endeavour and discussion sourced from across the internet, but the fact that this view is being presented by AI itself surely suggests there is cause for some concern. Our role as parliamentarians must be to protect the interests of humans, not big tech companies; to scrutinise the proposals of big tech companies; to avoid the luddite tendency, crucially; and to build in suitable safeguards.