Arts and media groups demand Labor take a stand against 'rampant theft' of Australian content to train AI

Arts, creative and media groups have demanded the government rule out allowing big tech companies to take Australian content to train their artificial intelligence models, with concerns such a shift would "sell out" Australian workers and lead to "rampant theft" of intellectual property. "It is not appropriate for big tech to steal the work of Australian artists, musicians, creators, news media, journalism, and use it for their own ends without paying for it," Ley said on Wednesday. In an interim report on "harnessing data and digital technology", the Productivity Commission set out proposals for how tech, including AI, could be regulated and treated in Australia, suggesting it could boost productivity by between 0.5% and 13% over the next decade, adding up to 116bn to Australia's GDP. The commission suggested several possible remedies, including expanding licensing schemes, or an exemption for "text and data mining" and expanding the existing fair dealing rules, which it said existed in other countries. The latter suggestion prompted fierce pushback from arts, creative and media companies, which raised alarm their work could be left open for massively wealthy tech companies to use – without compensation or payment – to train AI models.