The internet is not a free-for-all—we shouldn't let big tech companies wish copyright out of existence

Why copyright right matters, over a crudely drawn countryside scene.

Jacob Ridley, senior hardware editor

(Image credit: Future)

This week: I just so happened to be listening to Mustafa Suleyman's book, The Coming Wave: AI, Power and the 21st Century's Greatest Dilemma. In which, the DeepMind co-founder goes into his thoughts on AI and the "technological revolution" he suggests has already begun.

When a generative AI system creates an image or some text, it all begins with training. Without an understanding of how words are statistically related to one another, or without knowledge of what an image is showing, a generative AI cannot successfully recreate it. The image generated by an AI might be a new work in itself, a complete original, though it's influenced by real works—millions of them—owned by millions of people.