Regarding generative AI, I am concerned that Local 802 continues to be out of step with the growing activist community now mobilizing to defend the livelihood and intellectual property rights of musicians around the world. In the May issue of Allegro, Recording Vice President Harvey Mars went out of his way to imply that an open letter from 200 major artists and the Artist Rights Alliance was unrealistic, when it is clear that Mars lacks the necessary technical and legal knowledge to make that determination or to lead on this issue. We note that his article was not endorsed by the AFM.

When Mars writes, “In early April, more than 200 performing artists created an open letter calling for tech companies, AI developers and digital music services to stop using AI over concerns of its impact on artists and songwriters,” he misrepresents the letter in question. The actual letter made clear that “AI has enormous potential to advance human creativity and in a manner that enables the development and growth of new and exciting experiences for music fans everywhere.” But it continues, “When used irresponsibly, AI poses enormous threats to our ability to protect our privacy, our identities, our music and our livelihoods. Some of the biggest and most powerful companies are, without permission, using our work to train AI models. These efforts are directly aimed at replacing the work of human artists with massive quantities of AI-created ‘sounds’ and ‘images’ that substantially dilute the royalty pools that are paid out to artists. For many working musicians, artists and songwriters who are just trying to make ends meet, this would be catastrophic.”

Are Mars and Local 802 somehow not on board with this agenda? The use of our work without our permission infringes on our copyrights and rights of publicity, while also instilling unfair and predatory methods of competition. The training of commercial AI models on the intellectual property of others without their consent (despite the industry’s self-interested claims) is NOT “fair use.” This is the basis of the New York Times’s current lawsuit against OpenAI and Microsoft. Across the creative world, artists, musicians, performers, and writers (including those in last summer’s historic WGA and SAG-AFTRA strikes) are banding together to ensure that automated technologies do not undermine the integrity of creative cultures and the legal rights and livelihoods of those whose work makes the technology possible.

Yet, Mars says that movement is unrealistic. His answer seems to be jumping on the bills that Senators Schumer and Schiff are currently guiding through the legislative process. These bills are a good starting point for our collective endeavors, but it is imperative that union members and their leadership recognize that these bills do not address the major issues that will hurt creative workers.

Mars writes that “Realistic expectations and goals must be created,” but lacks the qualifications to articulate those goals. While creative activists are educating themselves and preparing to seek legal redress under current statutes and to shape emerging legislation proactively, Mars and 802 seem to feel it’s too late to late to do anything: “The genie is out of the bottle and it’s not going back in,” they say.

Like much else in this defeatist position, the “genie out of the bottle” theory is a favorite Big Tech talking point that ignores the fact that the training of AI models is wholly dependent on the repeated use of human-generated creative works. (Training new models on the synthetic outputs of older models has repeatedly been shown to produce substandard models that perform poorly or “collapse.”) This means that the “genie” in Mars’s metaphor will persistently “scrape” and “train on” our creative work — a perpetual regime of data extraction that seeks profit by concentrating the intellectual property of the many into proprietary models owned by the few. The principal beneficiaries are already the world’s most powerful technology companies, billionaires, and venture capitalist firms.

Mars and Local 802 are out of step and behind the times. They have also installed an AI “entrepreneur” as the head of their AI committee, William Meade. Meade is so far unwilling to divulge which six AI companies in China and Nigeria he states he is working for. We have asked that he do so in order to determine whether these companies are illegally ingesting our music for their profit, creating a conflict of interest with our membership and Local 802. The AFM and Local 802 need people involved with this fight that understand and want to represent the issues from the perspective of creators, not the industry or its advocates.

This all needs to change now. As a start, we call for the AI committee to be immediately reconstituted with a democratically elected chair.

Opinion pieces in Allegro, including MEMBER TO MEMBER, do not necessarily reflect the views of the officers, members or staff of Local 802. To inquire about submitting a piece to Allegro, send an e-mail to Allegro@Local802afm.org

LOCAL 802 RESPONDS:

Local 802 has taken on a leadership role with regard to understanding and learning the potential trajectory of the use of AI in performing arts by forming a committee. It appears that a few members object to the fact that Local 802 member Bill Meade was appointed interim chair. But Bill has already shown us multiple pathways to achieving ethical and responsible use of AI in his Allegro articles.

One of those pathways — enactment of protective legislation — was highlighted in Recording Vice President Harvey Mars’ report. These pathways can and will be successful only if we work together to achieve them. That is why we have reached out to our membership to join this committee. The direction of the committee and the union with regard to AI is not dependent upon the viewpoint of any one person. It is dependent upon the desires and power of a unified membership.

We implore members such as Ben Bierman to join Local 802’s AI committee. To join, send an e-mail of interest to Chief of Staff Dan Point at dpoint@local802afm.org.