Game of Thrones creator George R.R. Martin calls for regulations on generative AI
By Dan Selcke
Ever since programs like ChatGPT and Midjourney came into widespread use earlier this year, everyone has been buzzing about generative AI. Based on a simple prompt, these programs can generate paragraphs of coherent text or create an image that would have required a fair amount of labor to create before.
People like A Song of Ice and Fire author George R.R. Martin are concerned that it could take work away from writers and artists. He appeared recently on a panel in his local neighborhood of Sante Fe with Martin Heinrich, a Democratic senator from New Mexico, and Dr. Melanie Moses from the University of New Mexico. They talked about the importance of coming up with rules to regulate the use of generative AI before it causes unexpected harm to people’s livelihoods.
George R.R. Martin advocates for increased “control” of AI technology
“You can’t turn back technology, but you can control technology,” Martin said. “I mean, AI has to be relegated to being a tool that writers and artists can use and not a replacement for writers and artist.”
Dr. Moses agreed that lawmakers would be better off putting guidelines in place sooner rather than later. “I think that we’re in a time of tremendous uncertainty where it’s really not clear where this technology is, is going, which is a really good reason to get ahead of it and make some rules and guidelines that help guide where we go next,” she said.
Senator Martin Heinrich, meanwhile, helped establish the bipartisan AI caucus in 2019, so he’s had his finger on the pulse of this issue for a while now. The AI caucus is intended to keep the United States at the forefront of responsible AI innovation while maintaining important ethical, safety, and privacy standards, according to KRQU News. “We have a window right now, a window that we lost with social media when it came on the scene, right?” Heinrich said. “Like we did not, you know, government did not get ahead of social media. And now it’s really hard to do anything about that.”
George R.R. Martin is suing ChatGPT creator OpenAI
Of these three panelists, Martin is the one in a position to feel the affects of generative AI most acutely. And he has been attempting to address the issue in several different ways. For instance, he teamed up with authors like John Grisham to file a lawsuit against OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, alleging “mass-scale copyright infringement.”
The point of that lawsuit is to try and get courts to draw some lines when it comes to generative AI, because unless someone does it soon, things could get chaotic beyond the abilities of regulatory bodies to control. “The question is, who owns it? And who, who then has the right to do it? And who gets paid for it? And how long do they get paid for it?” Martin asked on the panel.
Martin’s lawsuit cited versions of The Winds of Winter and A Dream of Spring — the planned sixth and seventh books in his Song of Ice and Fire series — as proof that OpenAI had misappropriated his copyrighted works without permission or remuneration. The fan who used AI to created those versions has since taken them down. Over the next few years (or even months), expect more clarity about the contexts in which AI-generated is allowed, which it is not, and what lies between.
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