UK is at a fork in the AI road, says House of Lords committee

Fight is on between protecting creatives and feeding AI

The UK’s creative industries face a “clear and present danger” from generative AI, a House of Lords committee has warned the government.

The Communications and Digital Committee (CDC) says the UK is at a tipping point between two AI futures, in a new report on AI and copyright.

The country can become “a world-leading home for responsible, licensing-based artificial intelligence development” or “drift’ towards acceptance of large-scale use of unlicensed creative content by opaque US-based AI models, allowing damage to our creative industries to go unchecked.”

The committee warns that changes to UK copyright law, for example allowing AI-created works to be copyrighted, could undermine creative industries.

The creative sector contributed £124 billion to the economy in 2023 and employed 2.4 million people. The AI sector, by contrast, contributed £12 billion in 2024 and employed 86,000 people.

The issue of AI and copyright is still playing out around the world. In the UK, the government was forced to rethink proposals that would have allowed AI models to be trained on copyrighted work last year. There is also strong public support for stronger copyright protections against AI.

Tech firms argue that introducing a commercial text and data mining (TDM) exception for AI training would expand the UK’s AI sector. However, the Lords committee says it is “clear” that this would “exacerbate existing harms to rightsholders and stall the emerging licensing market.”

The CDC sets out its own recommendations for how the country should handle licensing. They include:

• Ruling out the proposed TDM exception, ala Australia;
• Introduce protections for creatives against “unauthorised digital replicas and ‘in the style of’ AI outputs.”
• Make transparency about AI training data a statutory obligation
• Help to build a “fair and inclusive” UK licensing market
• Prioritise the development and adoption of sovereign AI models focusing on transparency and a respect for copyright

Committee chair Baroness Keeley said, “AI may contribute to our future economic growth, but the UK creative industries create jobs and economic value now… Watering down the protections in our existing copyright regime to lure the biggest US tech companies is a race to the bottom that does not serve UK interests.

“We should not sacrifice our creative industries for AI jam tomorrow.”