#AI in public sector

[eaglesnick]

“We are intensely relaxed about people getting filthy rich” - Peter Mandelson

The other day I made the assertion that when the people of Britain voted for Keir Starmer, what they were really getting was Tony Blaire. To be fair this was partly tongue-in-cheek but having read the Kings Speech setting out the Labour Party's plans to change Britain it is closer to the truth than is comfortable.

The Tony Blaire Institute for Global Change has a paper entitled: The Economic Case for Reimagining the State that was published July 9th, 2024, just five days after the UK elections. Some of the wording in this report is almost identical to some of the wording in the Kings Speech.

Tony Blaire Institute:  “reforming the UK’s antiquated planning system is a high priority that could unlock much needed infrastructure investment and help un-gum the UK’s housing market.”

Kings Speech: “My Ministers will get Britain building, including through planning reform, as they seek to accelerate the delivery of high quality infrastructure and housing."

Tony Blaire: "Normalization of relations with the EU: A full reversal of these losses may be politically unattainable during this Parliament, but there is a path to a better post-Brexit relationship in the coming years"

Kings Speech: My Government will seek to reset the relationship with European partners and work to improve the United Kingdom's trade and investment relationship with the European Union

Tony Blaire: "The new government will need to lean in to support the diffusion of AI-era tech across the economy by adopting a pro-innovation, pro-technology stance, as advocated by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.”

Kings Speech: "It will seek to establish the appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models.”

The Kings Speech is, by necessity, very brief and gives virtually no detail how the government’s aims are to be achieved. We will have to wait and see how much more of Keir Starmer’s vision for the future of Britain mirrors that of Tony Blaire. If Starmer is as closely aligned to Blaire as these comparisons suggest then public sector workers beware.

Blaire places great reliance on the introduction of artificial intelligence to ALL sectors of the economy, but  especially within the public sector. Once introduced Blaire predicts a productivity gain of “one-fifth workforce time”

 Public sector workers, having adopted the new AI and having increased productivity by 20% can then expect the sack.

“If the government chooses to bank these time savings and reduce the size of the workforce, this could result in annual net savings of £10 billion per year by the end of this Parliament and £34 billion per year by the end of the next – enough to pay for the entire defence budget.”

This is the true Blairite mindset. Nothing about sharing the productivity gains made by workers in the form of higher wages, nothing about the redistribution of wealth or tackling income inequality. In Blaire’s Case for Reimagining the State poverty is not mentioned once. Inequality gets one mention but only as a statistic relating to workers forced to use food banks. 

What Blaire and Starmer – like the Conservative Party - appear to have forgotten is that  public services are exactly that –  services.  Yes they need to be efficient and cost effective but NOT to the extent that the service element is lost. The rich can afford to buy service, ordinary working people have to rely upon government for basic services and over the last few years they have been badly let down.  Poor pay, increasing workloads, job insecurity and private sector creep have all contributed to bringing Britain’s public services to the verge of collapse. Let us all hope Starmer and Blaire don’t push them completely over the edge.

[trendynewsnow]

OpenAI Appoints New Chief Economist Amid Expansion Efforts

OpenAI Welcomes New Chief Economist Amid Ambitious Expansion Plans OpenAI, a company where executives and researchers envision the potential of artificial intelligence to dramatically reshape the world, has made a significant strategic move by hiring a chief economist with connections to two Democratic presidential administrations. On Tuesday, OpenAI announced that it has appointed Aaron “Ronnie”…

[procurement-insights]

A Tale Of Two ProcureTech Demos

Why this should be the first phase in the ProcureTech demo process.

Here is the review of a demo about which I wrote on Friday: Globality Demo > The Road to the ProcureTech Cup: Episode 25-06 (Click on the link to access and watch the demo) Here is my take on the Globality Demo: From what I saw, it is an excellent application, but nothing unique compared to what I have seen in many other demos. There is a component or element that can read text and allow the…

[farmerstrend]

Why Kenya's Agritech Startups Struggle to Penetrate the Market Despite Strong Investment

Discover why Kenya’s agritech startups struggle with market penetration despite strong investment, and explore how regulatory challenges and fragmented services hinder growth in the sector. Kenya’s agritech industry faces hurdles beyond funding, including complex regulations and data security concerns. Learn how startups can overcome these challenges to scale and succeed. Uncover the key barriers…

[headspace-hotel]

USAmericans

Read the Project 2025 manifesto RIGHT NOW

It's MUCH worse than y'all have been hearing

There is so much here you'll have to look at it for yourself, but the climate policy alone is nightmare fuel.

The republican coalition wants to essentially end funding for green energy, dramatically promote and expand fossil fuel industries, and eliminate funding and regulations in all sectors promoting climate change mitigation. Task forces and offices related to clean energy and lowering carbon emissions will be eliminated and replaced with offices for promoting fossil fuels.

They want to LOG NATIONAL FORESTS TO "THIN" THE TREES TO STOP WILDFIRES.

THEY WANT TO FORCE OREGON AND CALIFORNIA TO LOG THEIR NATIONAL FORESTS AND TREAT THEM AS FOR TIMBER PRODUCTION

There are specific provisions in Project 2025 to essentially destroy the Endangered Species Act, causing it to defer to the rights of "economic development" and "private property." The plan includes delisting gray wolves, cutting the budget so that a "triage" system is used to determine which species will get protection, removing funding for research, removing experts and specialists from the decision-making process, and preventing "experimental" populations of animals from being established.

This is so much worse than I expected it to be and there's much more past that: They want to deregulate pesticides and remove much of the EPA's ability to regulate pollutants as well.

Also included in the manifesto is that we should

withdraw from nuclear weapons nonproliferation agreements, build more nuclear weapons, and resume nuclear weapons testing

The manifesto comprehensively outlines the scorched-earth elimination of abortion access, down to ensuring doctors aren't even trained to perform abortions. There are plans in here to disrupt abortion access GLOBALLY, not just domestically.

Not only that,the Republicans plan on reframing family planning programs around "fertility awareness" and "holistic family planning."

I can't even describe it all. I'm trying to give screenshots of the most important things but there's so much.

The foreign policy is a nightmare. They plan to push fossil fuels onto the Global South and promote the development of fossil fuel industry in the "developing world."

It is aggressive and antagonistic towards other nations, strongly pro-military, proposing that we INCREASE (!!!!!) defense spending, improve public opinion of the military and military recruitment, and increase the power to fund new weapons technology.

Just read the Department of Defense section. It's about greatly increasing and strengthening the military-industrial complex, collaborating more closely with weapons manufacturers, removing regulatory barriers to arming our allies and to inventing new military weapons, and recruiting more people into the military. They include provisions to develop AI technology for surveillance. And of course, continuing to support Israel is in there.

Elsewhere it proposes interfering in foreign countries with creepy pro-USA propaganda campaigns, even establishing international educational programs where faculty have to pledge to promote USA interests.

There's a line in here about getting rid of PBS because SESAME STREET is LEFTIST for God's sake.

HOW are people claiming democrats have the same policies. I feel like i'm losing my mind.

[dynamobooks]

Maja Fjaestad & Simon Vinge (red.): AI & makten över besluten - vad alla borde veta om algoritmer i offentlig sektor (2024)

[worldpopulationday]

(Part 1) ICPD30 Global Dialogue on Technology.

As we celebrate the 30th anniversary of the International Conference on Population and Development Programme of Action (ICPD PoA), the Governments of the Bahamas and Luxembourg with UNFPA, the United Nations sexual and reproductive health agency, are convening key stakeholders to celebrate achievements, address polarization, and position for the future.

High level opening ceremony

Panel discussion: Meaningful connectivity - Closing the digital devide.

Over the past three decades, technology has been a powerful catalyst for the remarkable achievements of the conference's Programme of Action, particularly for women's health, rights and choices. Advancements in technology, including artificial intelligence (AI), have expanded the possibilities for advancing sexual and reproductive health and rights, accelerating gender equality and sustainable development. 

The dialogue brings together key stakeholders from the public and private sector to: 

Celebrate achievements by showcasing three decades of technological advancements, including the rapid growth of AI, which have contributed to sustainable development as well as to progress for women's health, rights and well-being.

Foster progress for rights-based and equitable design and use of technology as well as access to technology. The dialogue will promote discussions to support safe, private, equitable and secure design, use and access, aligned with human rights and gender equality principles.

Advance commitments towards the development of feasible, cost-effective and scalable technologies, addressing the digital divide and the associated inequalities in technology diffusion, which affect people's access to the benefits of technologies and risk further worsening social divides and discrimination.

Enable collective action to address safety, equitable access, governance, discrimination and tech-facilitated gender-based violence by aligning technology with human rights, gender equality, the rule of law and the common good.

Support future partnerships and collaboration to harness the potential of technology for sustainable development and to work towards a world in which technology equalizes opportunities for women and girls and benefits all.

Related Sites and Documents

International Conference on Population and Development

[epublicsector]

AI Government - Besser mit KI regieren oder durch KI regiert?

ODER Programmierte Vernunft!

Die Menschheit lebt in gefährlichen Zeiten. Unnötig und fast unmöglich, alle die Gefahren und Bedrohungen aufzuzählen., da fällt es nicht einfach zuversichtlich zu bleiben, wie uns Ingo Zamperoni nach den Tagesthemen auffordert.

Der Glaube vieler Menschen schwindet, dass die bestehenden Institutionen und handelnden Personen – vor allem die an der Macht befindlichen Politiker – die Bedrohungen lösen können. Verschwörungstheoretiker bezweifeln, dass sie das überhaupt wollen und unterstellen demokratischen Politikern, Wissenschaftlern und Wirtschaftsführer sogar, Bedrohungen bewusst in die Welt gesetzt zu haben, wie etwa Bill Gates die Existenz des Corona Virus, um eines der vielen abstrusen Beispiel zu nehmen. „Die da oben“ wollen so das Volk unterdrücken und ihre Macht sichern.

Gerade diese Leute fallen massenweise auf Falschnachrichten, Neudeutsch Fake News, und sich diesen bedienende populistische Politiker herein. Die ist umso absurder, als diese populistischen Politiker sich der Mechanismen bedienen, die sie demokratischen vorwerfen: Sie verbreiten Fake News und haben nur den eigenen Machtgewinn im Blick, für den sie alles bereit sind zu tun – vor allem Wähler zu betrügen und auszunutzen. Wie können Wähler glauben, dass machtgierige wie Trump, Erdogan, Netanjahu oder deren Mimen ihre Aufgabe darin sehen, sich für die Belange der Bürger einzusetzen? Ganz zu schweigen von menschenverachtenden Kriegsverbrechern wie beispielsweise Vladimir Putin oder die Terroristen des IS oder der Hamas.

Die Holocaust-Überlebende Elsa Friedmann sagt, „wir müssen menschlich bleiben“. Ähnliches hört man von anderen Überlebenden des Holocaust.

Mann muss sich nicht auf der Gräueltaten konzentrieren, um klar zu sehen, dass Menschen nicht immer menschlich handeln. Es genügt auch ein Blick auf Korruption, Machtmissbrauch, Betrug, Gier, Lüge usw. um zu trivial konstatieren, dass wir uns trotz aller Auswahlverfahren auch bei Menschen in Führungspositionen nicht auf ein mitmenschliches, nach Gerechtigkeit strebendes, vernünftiges im Sinne einer positiven Zukunft ausgerichtetes Handeln verlassen können.

Selbst „normale“ Politiker neigen dazu, zuzuspitzen und zu emotionalisieren, statt sachlich und differenziert zu bleiben, um sich medial mehr Gehör und Gefolgschaft zu verschaffen. Yann LeCun, Informatik-Professor an der NYU spitzt dies zu auf die Formel, dass Testosteron für die Welt eine größere Gefahr sei, als künstliche Intelligenz.

Daran haben Legislative und Executive nicht genügend ändern können, zumal sie selbst vor negativen (An-)Trieben nicht gefeit sind.

Besser regieren oder regiert mit KI?

In der künstlichen Intelligenz-Szene gibt es vor allem in Kalifornien „Transhumanisten“, die die Ablösung der Menschheit durch Maschinen vorhersagen. Ob das nun ein mögliches Szenario ist, oder nicht, es ist für uns Menschen komplett uninteressant! Denn sollten Maschinen einmal derartige Fähigkeiten entwickeln, würden wir sie ohnehin nicht aufhalten können, auch nicht in einem frühen Stadium. In der Geschichte der Menschheit gab es noch keine erfolgsversprechende Technologie, deren Entwicklung komplett gestoppt werden konnte, trotz vielfacher Versuche wie bei der Dampfmaschine, Atombombe, Gentechnik u.v.a.m. Juristen sei gesagt: Kein Gesetz könnte die Maschinen, von denen die Transhumanisten Träumen, je zurückhalten auch nicht der verbindliche Einbau eines roten Aus-Knopfes…

Als autonome Maschinen wären sie von menschlichem Einfluss befreit. Womit sollte eine Executive autarke Maschinen auch stoppen, mit Energieentzug? Die damaligen Maschinenstürmer konnten nicht einmal den Siegeszug komplett von Energie und Menschen abhängiger Dampfmaschinen aufhalten, künstlich intelligente Software würde sich autonom neue Energiequellen suchen.

Maschinenstürmer vs. Maschinenermächtiger

Aber sollten wir Menschen nicht mehr Angst vor uns selbst, als vor Maschinen haben? Viele Angst vor dem Einfluss KI generierter Fake News, Fake Contents. Deren Einfluss hängt jedoch primär vom Verhalten derjenigen ab, die diese Inhalte lesen verbreiten oder für ihre Zwecke nutzen – und das sind heute in der Regel noch Menschen. Die Echtheit der Inhalte ist nicht entscheidend, sondern die Reaktion darauf!

Maschinen können autonom agieren, werden aber niemals einen freien Willen entwickeln können und somit auch kein Machtbedürfnis oder ein Interesse, Menschen zu unterdrücken oder zu eliminieren. Maschinen können prinzipiell niemals „aus dem Nichts“ selbst ein Bewusstsein und damit eine Intention oder eigene Werte entwickeln, sie können so etwas nur täuschendecht simulieren. Selbst autonome Systeme können keine derartige, für ein sich selbst bewusstes, frei selbst bestimmtes handeln erforderliche „Autopoesis“ haben. Die heutigen KI-Systeme, die eine allgemeine menschliche Intelligenz am erfolgreichsten simulieren können, basieren auf großen Sprachmodellen, wie u.a. GPT-3. Selbst lernende KI basiert auf statistischen Auswertungen von Trainingsdaten. Im Ergebnis liefern sie Antworten, die gemäß Traningsdaten am wahrscheinlichsten sind. Dabei „wissen“ sie nicht, was sie tun.

Die eigentliche Intelligenz liegt also in den Sprachmodellen, die entscheidend für das Antwortverhalten sind - deshalb gibt es die Diskussion über diskriminierungsfreie Trainingsdaten gerade in der Forensik oder auch bei Bewerberanalysen. Entsprechend verhält es sich mit dem Einfluss der Trainingsmaterialien bei anderen KI-Systemen, seien es Rechtssprechungen, medizinische Diagnosen und Therapien oder tausender anderer Einsatzgebiete.

KI-Systeme können mit in den Trainingsmaterialien verankerten Leitbildern, Werten, Normen, Regeln auf Ergebnisse trainiert werden, die diesen Input widerspiegeln!

Bildlich ist das ähnlich wie bei einem Kind, das erzogen wird, bestimmte Regeln einzuhalten.

Im Unterschied zum Menschen, der sich aus Wille und Vorstellung einfach nicht an die Regeln hält, kann eine KI solche Intentionen aus sich selbst heraus nicht entwickeln (s.o.).

Genau hier liegt die vielleicht größte Chance der KI: Mit den richtigen Daten trainiert kann sie gesichert besser im Sinne der Menschheit handeln, als Menschen selber. Nun sollten Maschinen vielleicht nicht gleich die Macht übernehmen, aber sie sollten uns helfen, besser zu handeln. Was Jurikative und Executive nur unzureichend ermöglichen, können Algorithmen effektiv und effizient durchsetzen. Sie könne uns Menschen besser vor unseren menschlichen Makeln schützen!

Wie das aussehen kann, dazu ein Beispiel: Schon heute schützen Operationsroboter (Computer Assisted Surgery, kurz CAS) Chirurgen vor fatalen Fehlgriffen, etwa in dem sie technische Sperren aktivieren, wenn sie analysieren, dass der Chirurg einen falschen Weg einschlägt oder eine unruhige Hand hat. Auch schützen sie vor Fehldiagnosen, indem sie mit geprüften Diagnosematerial trainiert deutlich bessere Ergebnisse erzielen, als Einzeldiagnosen (lauf Max-Planck-Institut für Bildungsforschung mit 76% zu 46% richtigen Diagnosen).

Was könnte solch ein Mechanismus übertragen auf mächtige Politiker oder Wirtschaftsführer gegen Machtmissbrauch, Korruption, Betrug, Gesetzesverstöße oder Gewalteinsatz bewirken? Dabei könnten an den Tischen der Macht installierte Systeme auch trainiert werden, die Äußerungen und Gefühle der Regierenden zu erkennen und sie technisch daran hindern, bestimmte Nachrichten zu versenden oder Knöpfe zu drücken.

Statt eines AI-Act, der uns vor den Gefahren der KI schützen sollen bräuchten wir ein Maschinenermächtigungsgesetz ( ;-), das KI-Systeme ermächtigt, uns vor den Gefahren menschlichem Machtmissbrauchs zu schützen!

Maschinen können für mehr Gut-Menschlichkeit, Gerechtigkeit und Vernunft sorgen, wenn sie mit entsprechenden Zielen entwickelt werden. Sie sind gefeit gegen Korruption, Eitelkeit, Gier, Machthunger, Hass und alle anderen menschlichen Makel.

Sie sind eine Chance, menschliche Makel und Grausamkeiten einzudämmen.

In nicht wenigen Fällen machen Algorithmen durch automaische Vorverarbeitung die Durchsetzung von Rechten überhaupt erst möglich - etwa bei  der Ausfilterung von Hetzbeiträgen auf Social Media Plattformen. In solchen Bereichen, wo die Durchsetzung von Rechten durch legitimierte Menschen und Institutionen nicht (mehr) praktikabel ist, könnten Algorithmen für ein Mehr an Rechtssicherheit, Gerechtigkeit und Sicherheit sorgen.

Algorithmen sind eine neue Form der Gesetzgebung und Exekutive in Silikonunion. Die „alte“ Gesetzgebung kann immer weniger durchgesetzt und immer wieder missbraucht werden.

KI Act now!

Die Entwicklung solcher Algorithmen darf nicht unkontrolliert privaten Firmen überlassen werden, sondern muss durch demokratisch legitimierte Institutionen vor nicht im Sinne des Gemeinwohls lautenden Verfahrensweisen und Kriterien geschützt werden.

So entwickelte und geprüfte Software und Services könnte ein neues Label (ähnlich dem TÜV) erhalten, bspw.  "Compliant Design"

Auch wenn längst nicht alle demokratisch handelnden Personen davon begeistert sein werden, sollten wir uns damit beeilen, solang wir noch demokratisch regiert werden. Anderen Versuche, alle Mächtigen zur Vernunft zu bringen, sind bisher gescheitert und wir haben nicht mehr viele…

[aitalksblog]

Reinventing Government in the Age of AI

(Images made by author with MS Bing Image Creator) In the early ’90s, the groundbreaking book, “Reinventing Government: How the Entrepreneurial Spirit is Transforming the Public Sector” by David Osborne and Ted Gaebler, introduced key principles aimed at transforming governments from bureaucratic entities into entrepreneurial organizations. This influential work was published during the nascent…

[equalpayday]

Share of companies which consider skills to be increasing in importance, ordered by the net difference.

Still less than 50% parity in the top-10 skills set to grow.

A persistent digital divide means women don’t have the same access to online learning that would enable them to upskill and future-proof their working lives. The report says that even when they do use these platforms, there are gender gaps in skilling. For enrolment in skills such as technological literacy (43.7% parity) and AI and big data (33.7%), which are among the top-10 skills projected to grow, there is less than 50% parity and ��progress has been sluggish”.

Achieving parity in earnings and senior roles is crucial to closing the gender gap overall, the report’s authors stress: “Increasing women’s economic participation and achieving gender parity in leadership, in both business and government, are two key levers for addressing broader gender gaps in households, societies and economies.”

And collaboration will be key, the Forum adds: “Collective, coordinated and bold action by private- and public-sector leaders will be instrumental in accelerating progress towards gender parity and igniting renewed growth and greater resilience.”

[skanella]

Empowering Public Sector Excellence: Transformative AI Solutions

Elevate public services with AI products. Enhance efficiency, informed decision-making, and citizen interactions. SKANELLA AI consultants offer tailored solutions for the public sector, optimizing processes and delivering innovative automation.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Penguin Random House, AI, and writers’ rights

NEXT WEDNESDAY (October 23) at 7PM, I'll be in DECATUR, GEORGIA, presenting my novel THE BEZZLE at EAGLE EYE BOOKS.

My friend Teresa Nielsen Hayden is a wellspring of wise sayings, like "you're not responsible for what you do in other people's dreams," and my all time favorite, from the Napster era: "Just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side."

The record labels hated Napster, and so did many musicians, and when those musicians sided with their labels in the legal and public relations campaigns against file-sharing, they lent both legal and public legitimacy to the labels' cause, which ultimately prevailed.

But the labels weren't on musicians' side. The demise of Napster and with it, the idea of a blanket-license system for internet music distribution (similar to the systems for radio, live performance, and canned music at venues and shops) firmly established that new services must obtain permission from the labels in order to operate.

That era is very good for the labels. The three-label cartel – Universal, Warner and Sony – was in a position to dictate terms like Spotify, who handed over billions of dollars worth of stock, and let the Big Three co-design the royalty scheme that Spotify would operate under.

If you know anything about Spotify payments, it's probably this: they are extremely unfavorable to artists. This is true – but that doesn't mean it's unfavorable to the Big Three labels. The Big Three get guaranteed monthly payments (much of which is booked as "unattributable royalties" that the labels can disperse or keep as they see fit), along with free inclusion on key playlists and other valuable services. What's more, the ultra-low payouts to artists increase the value of the labels' stock in Spotify, since the less Spotify has to pay for music, the better it looks to investors.

The Big Three – who own 70% of all music ever recorded, thanks to an orgy of mergers – make up the shortfall from these low per-stream rates with guaranteed payments and promo.

But the indy labels and musicians that account for the remaining 30% are out in the cold. They are locked into the same fractional-penny-per-stream royalty scheme as the Big Three, but they don't get gigantic monthly cash guarantees, and they have to pay the playlist placement the Big Three get for free.

Just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/09/12/streaming-doesnt-pay/#stunt-publishing

In a very important, material sense, creative workers – writers, filmmakers, photographers, illustrators, painters and musicians – are not on the same side as the labels, agencies, studios and publishers that bring our work to market. Those companies are not charities; they are driven to maximize profits and an important way to do that is to reduce costs, including and especially the cost of paying us for our work.

It's easy to miss this fact because the workers at these giant entertainment companies are our class allies. The same impulse to constrain payments to writers is in play when entertainment companies think about how much they pay editors, assistants, publicists, and the mail-room staff. These are the people that creative workers deal with on a day to day basis, and they are on our side, by and large, and it's easy to conflate these people with their employers.

This class war need not be the central fact of creative workers' relationship with our publishers, labels, studios, etc. When there are lots of these entertainment companies, they compete with one another for our work (and for the labor of the workers who bring that work to market), which increases our share of the profit our work produces.

But we live in an era of extreme market concentration in every sector, including entertainment, where we deal with five publishers, four studios, three labels, two ad-tech companies and a single company that controls all the ebooks and audiobooks. That concentration makes it much harder for artists to bargain effectively with entertainments companies, and that means that it's possible -likely, even – for entertainment companies to gain market advantages that aren't shared with creative workers. In other words, when your field is dominated by a cartel, you may be on on their side, but they're almost certainly not on your side.

This week, Penguin Random House, the largest publisher in the history of the human race, made headlines when it changed the copyright notice in its books to ban AI training:

https://www.thebookseller.com/news/penguin-random-house-underscores-copyright-protection-in-ai-rebuff

The copyright page now includes this phrase:

No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems.

Many writers are celebrating this move as a victory for creative workers' rights over AI companies, who have raised hundreds of billions of dollars in part by promising our bosses that they can fire us and replace us with algorithms.

But these writers are assuming that just because they're on Penguin Random House's side, PRH is on their side. They're assuming that if PRH fights against AI companies training bots on their work for free, that this means PRH won't allow bots to be trained on their work at all.

This is a pretty naive take. What's far more likely is that PRH will use whatever legal rights it has to insist that AI companies pay it for the right to train chatbots on the books we write. It is vanishingly unlikely that PRH will share that license money with the writers whose books are then shoveled into the bot's training-hopper. It's also extremely likely that PRH will try to use the output of chatbots to erode our wages, or fire us altogether and replace our work with AI slop.

This is speculation on my part, but it's informed speculation. Note that PRH did not announce that it would allow authors to assert the contractual right to block their work from being used to train a chatbot, or that it was offering authors a share of any training license fees, or a share of the income from anything produced by bots that are trained on our work.

Indeed, as publishing boiled itself down from the thirty-some mid-sized publishers that flourished when I was a baby writer into the Big Five that dominate the field today, their contracts have gotten notably, materially worse for writers:

https://pluralistic.net/2022/06/19/reasonable-agreement/

This is completely unsurprising. In any auction, the more serious bidders there are, the higher the final price will be. When there were thirty potential bidders for our work, we got a better deal on average than we do now, when there are at most five bidders.

Though this is self-evident, Penguin Random House insists that it's not true. Back when PRH was trying to buy Simon & Schuster (thereby reducing the Big Five publishers to the Big Four), they insisted that they would continue to bid against themselves, with editors at Simon & Schuster (a division of PRH) bidding against editors at Penguin (a division of PRH) and Random House (a division of PRH).

This is obvious nonsense, as Stephen King said when he testified against the merger (which was subsequently blocked by the court): "You might as well say you’re going to have a husband and wife bidding against each other for the same house. It would be sort of very gentlemanly and sort of, 'After you' and 'After you'":

https://apnews.com/article/stephen-king-government-and-politics-b3ab31d8d8369e7feed7ce454153a03c

Penguin Random House didn't become the largest publisher in history by publishing better books or doing better marketing. They attained their scale by buying out their rivals. The company is actually a kind of colony organism made up of dozens of once-independent publishers. Every one of those acquisitions reduced the bargaining power of writers, even writers who don't write for PRH, because the disappearance of a credible bidder for our work into the PRH corporate portfolio reduces the potential bidders for our work no matter who we're selling it to.

I predict that PRH will not allow its writers to add a clause to their contracts forbidding PRH from using their work to train an AI. That prediction is based on my direct experience with two of the other Big Five publishers, where I know for a fact that they point-blank refused to do this, and told the writer that any insistence on including this contract would lead to the offer being rescinded.

The Big Five have remarkably similar contracting terms. Or rather, unremarkably similar contracts, since concentrated industries tend to converge in their operational behavior. The Big Five are similar enough that it's generally understood that a writer who sues one of the Big Five publishers will likely find themselves blackballed at the rest.

My own agent gave me this advice when one of the Big Five stole more than $10,000 from me – canceled a project that I was part of because another person involved with it pulled out, and then took five figures out of the killfee specified in my contract, just because they could. My agent told me that even though I would certainly win that lawsuit, it would come at the cost of my career, since it would put me in bad odor with all of the Big Five.

The writers who are cheering on Penguin Random House's new copyright notice are operating under the mistaken belief that this will make it less likely that our bosses will buy an AI in hopes of replacing us with it:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/02/09/ai-monkeys-paw/#bullied-schoolkids

That's not true. Giving Penguin Random House the right to demand license fees for AI training will do nothing to reduce the likelihood that Penguin Random House will choose to buy an AI in hopes of eroding our wages or firing us.

But something else will! The US Copyright Office has issued a series of rulings, upheld by the courts, asserting that nothing made by an AI can be copyrighted. By statute and international treaty, copyright is a right reserved for works of human creativity (that's why the "monkey selfie" can't be copyrighted):

https://pluralistic.net/2023/08/20/everything-made-by-an-ai-is-in-the-public-domain/

All other things being equal, entertainment companies would prefer to pay creative workers as little as possible (or nothing at all) for our work. But as strong as their preference for reducing payments to artists is, they are far more committed to being able to control who can copy, sell and distribute the works they release.

In other words, when confronted with a choice of "We don't have to pay artists anymore" and "Anyone can sell or give away our products and we won't get a dime from it," entertainment companies will pay artists all day long.

Remember that dope everyone laughed at because he scammed his way into winning an art contest with some AI slop then got angry because people were copying "his" picture? That guy's insistence that his slop should be entitled to copyright is far more dangerous than the original scam of pretending that he painted the slop in the first place:

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2024/10/artist-appeals-copyright-denial-for-prize-winning-ai-generated-work/

If PRH was intervening in these Copyright Office AI copyrightability cases to say AI works can't be copyrighted, that would be an instance where we were on their side and they were on our side. The day they submit an amicus brief or rulemaking comment supporting no-copyright-for-AI, I'll sing their praises to the heavens.

But this change to PRH's copyright notice won't improve writers' bank-balances. Giving writers the ability to control AI training isn't going to stop PRH and other giant entertainment companies from training AIs with our work. They'll just say, "If you don't sign away the right to train an AI with your work, we won't publish you."

The biggest predictor of how much money an artist sees from the exploitation of their work isn't how many exclusive rights we have, it's how much bargaining power we have. When you bargain against five publishers, four studios or three labels, any new rights you get from Congress or the courts is simply transferred to them the next time you negotiate a contract.

As Rebecca Giblin and I write in our 2022 book Chokepoint Capitalism:

Giving a creative worker more copyright is like giving your bullied schoolkid more lunch money. No matter how much you give them, the bullies will take it all. Give your kid enough lunch money and the bullies will be able to bribe the principle to look the other way. Keep giving that kid lunch money and the bullies will be able to launch a global appeal demanding more lunch money for hungry kids!

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

As creative workers' fortunes have declined through the neoliberal era of mergers and consolidation, we've allowed ourselves to be distracted with campaigns to get us more copyright, rather than more bargaining power.

There are copyright policies that get us more bargaining power. Banning AI works from getting copyright gives us more bargaining power. After all, just because AI can't do our job, it doesn't follow that AI salesmen can't convince our bosses to fire us and replace us with incompetent AI:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/11/robots-stole-my-jerb/#computer-says-no

Then there's "copyright termination." Under the 1976 Copyright Act, creative workers can take back the copyright to their works after 35 years, even if they sign a contract giving up the copyright for its full term:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/09/26/take-it-back/

Creative workers from George Clinton to Stephen King to Stan Lee have converted this right to money – unlike, say, longer terms of copyright, which are simply transferred to entertainment companies through non-negotiable contractual clauses. Rather than joining our publishers in fighting for longer terms of copyright, we could be demanding shorter terms for copyright termination, say, the right to take back a popular book or song or movie or illustration after 14 years (as was the case in the original US copyright system), and resell it for more money as a risk-free, proven success.

Until then, remember, just because you're on their side, it doesn't mean they're on your side. They don't want to prevent AI slop from reducing your wages, they just want to make sure it's their AI slop puts you on the breadline.

Tor Books as just published two new, free LITTLE BROTHER stories: VIGILANT, about creepy surveillance in distance education; and SPILL, about oil pipelines and indigenous landback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/10/19/gander-sauce/#just-because-youre-on-their-side-it-doesnt-mean-theyre-on-your-side

Image: Cryteria (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:HAL9000.svg

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