On Monday, Australia’s Attorney-General Michelle Rowland confirmed the federal government’s decision to ban tech companies from using text and data mining to train artificial intelligence models. The decision reportedly comes after a group of tech companies advocated for changes to Australia’s copyright laws. billboard. The decision is a win for musicians, writers, artists and other creatives.
The rejected proposals were originally submitted to the Australian Government’s Productivity Commission in August in a report titled “Harnessing Data and Digital Technologies”. According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC), the report estimates that artificial intelligence can bring $116 billion to the economy within ten years.
“We’ve made it very clear that we will not accept text and data mining exceptions,” Rowland told ABC’s Morning News. yeson Monday.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, the proposal was immediately met with strong opposition from Australian creatives from all walks of life, from Aboriginal rapper Adam Briggs and writer Anna Funder to the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Australian Recording Industry Association. guardian.
No one is swayed by the pro-AI and anti-copyright arguments of tech executives like Scott Farquhar. Farquhar is the co-founder of software company Atlassian and currently chairs the Australian Technology Council. In a speech to the National Press Club in July, Farquhar described himself as a “technological optimist” and advocated changing the country’s copyright laws to make them more like those in the United States and Europe, with “fair use exceptions for text and data mining.”
He believes that fixing the problem “could bring billions of dollars in foreign investment to Australia.” For now at least, those billions of dollars will have to come at the expense of everyone else besides Australian creators and their hard-won copyrights.
