Exclusive: German authors, performers call for tougher ChatGPT AI regulations
Forty-two German associations and trade unions representing more than 140,000 authors and performers have urged the European Union to strengthen draft artificial intelligence rules and regulations, citing the threat to their copyright from generative AI, specifically ChatGPT.
Verdi and DGB trade unions and other associations for photographers, designers, journalists, and illustrators expressed their concerns in a letter to the European Commission, European Council and EU lawmakers.
The letter emphasised the growing concerns about generative artificial intelligence (AI) such as ChatGPT that can replicate human-like text and images using prompts.
"The use of protected training material without permission, its processing, and the predictable replacement of sources by generative AI, raise fundamental questions about accountability, liability, and compensation, which need to be resolved before irreversible damage occurs," the letter states.
"Generative AI needs to be at the centre of any meaningful AI market regulation," it added.
The European Commission, which proposed AI rules last year, will finalise the details of the regulation with EU lawmakers and member states in the coming months. The groups have urged the rules to be bolstered and regulate generative AI in the entire product cycle, particularly in providers of foundation models.
In addition, they also highlight that providers of such technology should be held liable for all content disseminated by the AI and call for them to be liable for infringement of personal rights and copyrights, misinformation, or discrimination. The letter also said that foundation model providers such as Microsoft (MSFT.O), Alphabet's (GOOGL.O) Google, Amazon (AMZN.O) and Meta Platforms (META.O) should not be allowed to operate central platform services to distribute digital content.
