Response to Dr Clementine Collett's report 'The Impact of AI on the Novel'
The following is an open letter from Sara Lloyd, Global AI Lead at Pan Macmillan
Upholding human creativity in the age of AI
Dear authors and illustrators,
The release of Dr. Clementine Collett’s report, 'The impact of Generative AI on the novel', funded by BRAID UK and in association with the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy and the Institute for the Future of Work, raises some important issues for publishers. As the Global AI Lead at Pan Macmillan I want to extend my thanks to Dr. Collett and all the authors who participated. We hear your fears and we understand them.
The report confirms what we already know: human creativity is precious, and the novel is more than just an art form; it is the cultural bedrock for an entire creative ecosystem. We fully acknowledge the profound anxieties surrounding GenAI, from the potential for income displacement and the potential erosion of originality to the fundamental questions of copyright and trust.
We are committed to navigating this period of change not with fear, but with a clear, author-centric strategy that prioritizes AI use where it helps to drive market growth, champions human originality, and leverages AI for your benefit as well as for the benefit of the wider publishing ecosystem.
Safeguarding income and upholding authors' rights
The economic concerns raised by the report – that 39% of the novelists surveyed have already seen a negative impact on their income, and 85% fear future negative impacts – are troubling. Our interests are entirely aligned with yours. Our commitment is to continue to find the broadest possible readership for your work, and ensure that the value you create remains rightly in your hands.
Prioritizing an opt-in, licensing-based model
Your right for control is paramount. The report clearly shows that 93% of novelists would likely opt-out of their work being used to train AI models in that scenario, while 86% of all literary creatives would opt-in, given a licensing-based market.
We actively champion the establishment of a fair, dynamic, and accessible licensing market for the use of copyright material in AI training. We believe in an opt-in model where permission and fair remuneration are mandatory preconditions. We do not support an 'opt-out' exception that undermines your rights.
As an active member of the Publisher's Association (PA) AI Taskforce and the Creative Rights in AI Coalition (CRAIC), we have undertaken a number of lobbying efforts to bring the government's attention to the way in which copyrights have been mined for AI training and to prevent any softening of the copyright regime in response to this. We promoted a letter writing campaign to all our people and gave them access to a template so that everyone could write to their MP on the matter. We responded to the government's consultation on copyright and AI both individually and through the PA. We took part in the Make It Fair campaign which ran across every national newspaper. Our CEO has signed open letters to Prime Minister Keir Starmer on the subject and our Global AI Lead has also been active, meeting with Lords and MPs on the issue. This work will continue.
Openness and trust: our pledge
Mistrust, fuelled by a lack of openness, endangers the essential connection between author and publisher. We are committed to clarity regarding our own use of AI.
We have been open about our in-house use of AI and will continue to lead and take part in active discussions on AI in publishing. We have already held roundtables with literary agents and authors to discuss how we can best navigate AI and to share some of the ways we are leveraging AI to improve the way we target, market and sell our authors’ books.
Our Global AI Lead has spoken at industry conferences worldwide sharing best practice, including where AI can mindfully and usefully be employed by publishers to improve our service to authors, illustrators and books as well as how to implement the necessary guardrails to ensure our use of AI aligns with our stated values.
Our internal AI tools are focused on delivering a better service to our authors and illustrators, broadening market reach, improving time to market and providing better, more highly targeted marketing.
Championing human creativity and originality
The concern that increased GenAI use could lead to a loss of originality in content, style, and language, and contribute to the de-skilling of younger generations, speaks to the heart of why we exist. We are a publisher of human stories, by human writers.
For us, AI is a tool to enhance the craft, not replace it. As many of the authors in the report stated, AI can support the act of writing through information search, data analytics, market trend analysis, and workflow efficiencies. Similarly, when we use AI at Pan Macmillan, it is for the purpose of enhancing our effectiveness in support of our authors and illustrators work to reach more readers and listeners.
Our focus is on scouting, developing, and investing in authentic human voices. The rise of ‘AI style’ may, as suggested in the report, spur a rise in experimental fiction, and we will continue to support original, counter-current works that have the ability to shape the culture as well as those that respond to the culture.
At the same time, for authors who wish to use AI as a tool to aid their own creativity we are here to support and promote their work too.
Countering homogeneity and bias
We share the concern that biased training data could perpetuate problematic stereotypes.
We are committed to investing in publishing that champions underrepresented groups, such as our recently announced publishing collaboration with the Black British Book Festival. This aligns with the report’s fifth recommendation and is crucial for ensuring that unique and diverse perspectives are encouraged and nurtured, actively countering the risks of a narrowed, 'AI-driven' literary landscape.
Where we utilize AI internally, we prioritize systems that align with responsible design principles and, drawing on the expertise of our Head of DEI and Social Impact, giving our people guidance on how to look for and actively address bias in AI outputs.
The future: using AI for author benefit
The future of publishing must see AI as a powerful accelerant for an author’s career, not an existential threat. Our strategy is to deploy AI tools that free up your time for the creative work that only you can do, and enhance our ability to publish, promote and sell it.
By optimizing tasks like market data analysis, identifying potential new global audiences, or streamlining the submission process, we can become a more productive, better-informed partner for you. This allows us to focus our human expertise, including our editors, marketers, publicists, rights professionals, designers and sales teams, on the strategic, creative, and relationship-based work that truly drives a book’s success.
Our message is clear: We are champions of the novel, we are champions of the creative voice, and we are champions for you. We will deploy AI tools where it supports this mission. We will stand with our authors and illustrators to demand policies that reinforce copyright and remunerate creators fairly. The challenge is immense, but so is the talent, commitment, humanity and resilience of our people. Together, we will ensure that the future of publishing remains brilliantly and uniquely human.
Sara Lloyd, Global AI Lead, Pan Macmillan