Leading companies OpenAI and Google have rejected the UK government’s proposed solution to the thorny issue of artificial intelligence and copyright, POLITICO reports.
Their position, set out in responses to a consultation that closed in February, will put further pressure on the government over proposals that have already attracted protests from creatives and lawmakers.
The responses were requested by the UK Parliament’s Science, Innovation and Technology Committee after representatives from both companies refused to give evidence to MPs about their position.
The “preferred option” proposed by the government in the consultation involves amending copyright law to allow AI companies to train their models on public content for commercial purposes without the permission of rights holders, unless rights holders “preserve their rights” by opting out.
According to the government’s proposal, these changes would be accompanied by increased transparency requirements for AI companies.
The publication POLITICO reported that ministers planned to publish a review of technical analyses of how these conditions would be met in an attempt to quell criticism of the plans.
But in its response to the consultation, OpenAI said the experience of other jurisdictions, including the EU, shows that opt-out models face “significant implementation challenges” and transparency obligations could lead to developers being “de-prioritised in the market.”
“The UK has a rare opportunity to cement itself as the AI capital of Europe by making choices that avoid policy uncertainty, foster innovation, and drive economic growth,” the company said, calling for a broad copyright exemption.
In its response, Google said that rights holders can already effectively exercise “choice and control” to prevent web crawlers from scraping content online, but suggested that those who opt out of AI training would not necessarily be entitled to rewards if they do appear in the model’s training data.
“We believe training on the open web must be free,” the company said.
It also warned that “excessive transparency requirements … could hinder the development of AI and affect the UK’s competitiveness in this area.”
Last month, Google and OpenAI urged the White House to resist attempts by foreign governments to impose onerous copyright and transparency obligations on submissions to the US AI Action Plan.
The UK government received more than 11,000 responses to its consultation. A spokesperson for the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology previously told POLITICO that final decisions have yet to be made.
“We are carefully considering the consultation responses and continue to engage with tech companies, the creative industries, and Parliament to inform our approach,” they said.
“We have always been clear that no changes will be made until we are absolutely confident we have a practical plan that delivers on each of our objectives.”
