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The ASA had 928 respondents to our annual survey this year, after opening the survey to include non-members for the first time. Our warm thanks to all who contributed; your insights are vital in helping us understand trends, advocate for creators’ rights, and provide better services and support.
Over the last two years, AI has been transforming the publishing landscape, affecting creative practice, and threatening livelihoods. We know that the works of thousands of Australian authors have been used to train generative AI models, without permission or payment, and have been tirelessly campaigning for redress to this harm and to advocate for the protection of creators’ copyright in the AI age. In this survey, we sought to understand how authors and illustrators have been impacted by the theft of their work and the emergence of this technology, their concerns about the use of their work for AI training, and how they may be using generative AI in their creative practice.
In almost unanimous agreement, 98% of respondents believed that AI companies should ask for permission to use authors’ and illustrators’ work for AI training.
When asked if they wanted to be credited in the instance that their work is used to train AI tools, almost 85% of respondents said yes, 9% weren’t sure, and 6% said no. For those who said no, the main reasons given were that they did not want their work used at all, that crediting individual author’s work did not seem feasible, or that they did not want to be associated with AI.
Regarding compensation, we asked respondents about both the past and future use of their work for AI training.
Where their work has already been used to train AI tools without their consent, we asked: do you want to be compensated? 92% said yes.
We asked: If AI companies seek permission to license your work for AI training – and you consent – do you expect compensation for that use? 93% said yes, 2% said no, and 5% reported ‘Other’. Of the latter, the most common reason given was that they would not consent to their work being used for AI training.
The majority of respondents (92%) who had their most recent work traditionally published reported that their publisher has not asked them to license their work for AI training purposes. Just 1% indicated they had been asked, and 0.30% said they had not been asked for permission, but their work had still been licensed for AI use. Amongst those who selected ‘Other’ (6.08%), we were concerned to see that some creators reported feeling pressured by their publisher to opt in to an AI licensing deal.
Reflecting the lack of transparency from AI developers about their use of authors’ and illustrators’ books to train their AI tools, most respondents to the survey (43%) indicated they were uncertain about whether AI tools had been trained on their work, with just over a third (34%) indicating they knew their work had been used. When asked if they or their publisher had granted permission for AI training, the vast majority of respondents (87%) indicated that, to their knowledge, neither they nor their publishers had granted permission for their works to be used to train AI. Only 1% said permission had been granted. Of those who said permission had been granted, 2% confirmed that they did receive compensation.
When we asked respondents whether they are concerned that AI tools will be able to copy their writing or illustration style, 89% said yes. However, the majority of respondents (75%) reported that they weren’t aware of any AI-generated books or products that are knock-offs of their work or that imitated their style, with 24% indicating they weren’t sure. Of the 2% who were aware of AI-generated knock-offs, one respondent reported finding one of their backlist titles published in another language, and another saw their article re-written using AI without any credit to the author.
We asked: Do you use generative AI as part of your writing or illustrating process?
More respondents reported using AI as part of their creative practice than last time we surveyed our members on AI use, but only marginally – this year 21% of respondents reported they use generative AI, compared to 19% in early 2023.
For those who do use AI in their creative process, administrative tasks and editing were the most common uses, followed by marketing and brainstorming. Around 41% of respondents selected ‘Other’, and within that subsection of people, over half (56%) said they used AI for research; followed by using AI tools for checking grammar (6%) and spell-checking (6%); then for data analysis (5%), as a dictionary/thesaurus (5%), and as a search engine (5%).
We asked: Have you lost job opportunities due to the adoption of generative AI?
Similar to the results of our last survey on AI, most respondents indicated they had not lost job opportunities due to the adoption of generative AI, or they were unsure if they had (47% and 47% respectively). Concerningly, there was a slight increase in those who indicated they had lost opportunities (6% this year compared to 4% in the previous survey). While this is not happening on a large scale yet, of the creators who reported losing opportunities, we heard from graphic designers and illustrators whose businesses have been dramatically impacted, copywriters replaced by AI tools, and editors seeing significant drops in work.
Finally, we asked respondents to share any other thoughts they had about generative AI and licensing. In general, authors expressed anger and outrage about the theft of their work by Big Tech companies, and concern about what will be done to compensate creators for this theft and to protect their rights in the AI age. Others shared a sense of hopelessness about the inevitability of generative AI taking away opportunities from creators, both to produce work and earn a living from it, and a concern for a perceived decline in quality of works produced as a result of the removal of human creativity and oversight.
Respondents also suggested beneficial ways generative AI could be used in their creative work, and proposed solutions to the threats generative AI poses, urging payment for authors and illustrators on an ongoing basis for the use of their work, and the need for labelling of AI-generated content.
We extend our sincere thanks again to the authors and illustrators who contributed to the survey. The information you provide allows us to better advocate for you.
Stay tuned for our next article looking at survey results on creative practice, author and illustrator income, and the publishing landscape.
