James Patterson and Jodi Picoult among 9,000 authors demanding payouts from tech companies who ‘feed’ their books to AI

Some of the world’s leading authors are demanding a payout from big tech companies like OpenAI, Alphabet, Meta, Stability AI, IBM, and Microsoft which they say are ‘feeding’ their works to AI and putting their entire industry at risk. 

In an open letter this week that was published by The Authors Guild, more than 9,000 authors said it’s unfair for the companies to be developing world-shaping technology that will boost their profits while ripping off their oeuvres. 

Among those who signed it are legendary crime fiction novelist James Patterson, Da Vinci Code author Dan Brown, Canadian author and poet Margaret Atwood, Jodi Picoult and others.

Actor Gabriel Byrne, who is also a memoirist and author, signed the letter this morning. 

The letter is addressed to Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. 

It begs them to stop the ‘inherent injustice’ of their life’s works being fed to the robots to ‘regurgitate’ and reproduce. 

‘Generative AI technologies built on large language models owe their existence to our writings.

‘These technologies mimic and regurgitate our language, stories, style, and ideas. Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essays, and poetry provide the “food” for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill. 

‘You’re spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited,’ the letter reads. 

It’s unclear how much exactly they are asking for, or whether they have received any kind of response from the tech companies they are appealing to. 

According to the letter, the median income for writers today is $23,000. 

The development of generative AI programs like ChatGPT and others threatens to drive that figure even lower, the authors argued. 

‘AI threatens to damage our profession by flooding the market with mediocre, machine-written books, stories, and journalism based on our work. 

‘In the past decade or so, authors have experienced a forty percent decline in income, and the current median income for full-time writers in 2022 was only $23,000. 

‘The introduction of AI threatens to tip the scale to make it even more difficult, if not impossible, for writers—especially young writers and voices from under-represented communities—to earn a living from their profession.’ 

The writers are demanding that the companies start obtaining permission for the copyrighted material in their AI programs, and payouts for past, present and future works. 

The Guild’s leaders also recently met with Washington DC lawmakers to determine a fair path forward. 

‘We are still awaiting a response from AI industry leaders.

‘In the meantime, we just are about to submit our testimony on AI issues to the Senate IP Subcommittee in connection with its 7/12 hearing. 

‘So we are forging ahead on pushing for legislative regulations of AI,’ a spokeswoman for the Guild told DailyMail.com. 

The letter is not the only demand – or threat – to big tech or its leaders. 

Earlier this year, comedian Sarah Silverman sued Meta and ChatGPT owner OpenAI for copyright infringement. 

She joined a class action lawsuit that blamed the tech companies for developing programs that scraped ‘shadow libraries’ – illegal, pirated versions of books – and regurgitated them online. 

The Authors Guild, in its letter, said that the companies would still be responsible for copyright infringement if AI obtained their works from such libraries.