The government is making a major investment in AI in this year's cultural budget. Among other things, the Royal Library is receiving 30 million kronor so that Swedish language models can be trained on the library's collections.
But a number of organizations are now highlighting that the government is not taking into account copyright in the investments, and mean that it "undermines the economic foundation of the Swedish cultural sector".
The Authors' Association welcomes the development of Swedish language models, since those currently used are based on the American language. But you don't pay for the raw material, says the Chairman of the Authors' Association, Anja Gatu, to Svenska Dagbladet.
If you just take the Royal Library's collections and train generative AI on them, then you have given away Swedish authors' works to AI training without the creators being compensated for their work.
After the government's presentation of the AI investment on September 10, several organizations asked questions about copyright, and the government gave the Royal Library the task last week to "shed light on economic and copyright aspects". But the organizations believe that the government is pushing the issue forward.
Those included in the appeal are: the Swedish Publishers' Association, the Newspaper Publishers, the Educational Material Companies, the Educational Material Authors, the Journalists' Union, the Swedish Authors' Association, and the Swedish Illustrators.
