Margaret Atwood among thousands of authors demanding compensation from AI companies

James Patterson, Suzanne Collins and Margaret Atwood are among more than 8,000writers endorsing an open letter from the Authors Guild urging AI companies to obtain permission before incorporating copyrighted work into their technologies.

"Millions of copyrighted books, articles, essaysand poetry provide the 'food' for AI systems, endless meals for which there has been no bill," the letter reads in part. "You're spending billions of dollars to develop AI technology. It is only fair that you compensate us for using our writings, without which AI would be banal and extremely limited."

The letter is addressed to OpenAI, Meta, Microsoft and other AI producers.

The guild, a New York-based organization that advocates on behalf of writers,announced Tuesday that other signatories include Pulitzer Prize-winning novelists Jennifer Egan, Michael Chabon and Louise Erdrich, as well as authors Jonathan Franzen, Celeste Ng, Nora Roberts and Ron Chernow.

"If creators aren't compensated fairly, they can't afford to create," Roberts said in a statement.

"If writers aren't paid to write, they can't afford to write. Human beings create and write stories; human beings read. We're not robots to be programmed, and AI can't create human stories without taking from human stories already written."

Mary Rasenberger, CEO of the Authors Guild, spoke to CBC's As It Happens about the open letter.

"There's a general feeling that this is unfair," Rasenberger told As It Happens hostNil Kksal. "The AI developers created these systems behind our backs without asking permission."

She said authors want to see AI companiescome to the table and discuss a form of collective licensing that would pay creators for the work AI developers havealready used to train generative artificial intelligence machinesas well asfuture uses.

Rasenberger said the guild would consider legal action if the companies didn't respond or come to some sort of agreement.She says she's concerned that the continued development of AI could result in significant losses for society.

"We [could] lose our literary culture. We lose, you know, the exchange of ideas ... all of the things that are so crucial to a democracy."