There is an article in today’s Telegraph written by Tom Mc Ardle which reports on a study done by Dr Clementine Collett at Cambridge University on AI’s effects on literary trends.

Dr Clementine Collett is a DPhil student on the ‘Information, Communication and the Social Sciences’ course at the Oxford Internet Institute. Clementine’s doctoral research explores gender bias in artificial intelligence (AI) recruitment technology.

Clementine has worked as lead author on reports such as IA and Gender: Four Proposals for Future Research (2019) with the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence at the University of Cambridge and The Effects of AI on the Working Lives 0f Women (2022) with the IDB, OECD and UNESCO.

Dr Clementine Collett

Novels written without artificial intelligence will become an “expensive luxury”, according the report.

Dr Clementine Collett has claimed that the creative market could become “tiered”, with only those who could afford human-written work being able to read it.

“[There] is a real concern from literary creatives that we will have a two-tier market, more so than we have already,” she told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme.

“Where human-written work will be more expensive – a luxury item.Those who can afford it will read human-written novels and AI generated content will be cheap or free and that will potentially have big societal implications as well.”

Dr Collett, who conducted the study at the University of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy (MCTD), interviewed to nearly 400 literary creatives across the UK about the threat of generative AI.

“There is widespread concern from novelists that generative AI trained on vast amounts of fiction will undermine the value of writing and compete with human novelists,” she said.

Dr Collett called on the Government to weigh up the economic growth it has so far prioritised by developing AI, against the potential impact on the creative industries, including readers and the novel itself.

The study found that almost two thirds (59 per cent) of novelists reported that their work had already been used to train large language models, which power AI tools, without permission or payment.

Such practices have already impacted the livelihoods of those surveyed, with more than a third (39 per cent) reporting their income being negatively affected by AI.

The report found genre fiction, especially romance, thrillers and crime, is more at risk from displacement than more highbrow literary fiction. Dr Collett said this was because of their more “formulaic” make up.

“We don’t know what generative AI is going to be able to do in the future in terms of producing more original content,” she added.

“It’s really important because novels are such a bedrock of our thriving British creative industry and they’re the core part of our humanity.” She called on Government intervention to help protect the industry.

Prof Gina Neff, executive director of the MCTD, said: “Our creative industries are not expendable collateral damage in the race to develop AI. They are national treasures worth defending.”

A spokesman for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said: “We’ve always been clear on the need to work with both the creative industries and the AI sector to drive AI innovation and ensure robust protections for creators.”