About half of UK novelists fear AI will take their work entirely – study

About half of published novelists in the UK fear that artificial intelligence will replace their work entirely, a report has suggested.

Cambridge University researchers surveyed 258 published novelists, 32 literary agents and 42 professionals who work in fiction publishing, doing so on condition of anonymity, earlier this year.

In responses, 59% of novelists said they know their work has been used to train AI large language models (LLMs) without permission or payment.

More than a third (39%) of novelists said their income has already taken a hit from generative AI, for example due to loss of other work that facilitates novel writing.

Most novelists surveyed (85%) said they expected their future income to be driven down by AI and 51% fear that “AI is likely to displace their work entirely”.

Report author Dr Clementine Collett, of Cambridge’s Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, said: “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.

“Many novelists felt uncertain there will be an appetite for complex, long-form writing in years to come.

“Novels contribute more than we can imagine to our society, culture and to the lives of individuals.

“Novels are a core part of the creative industries and the basis for countless films, television shows and video games.

“The novel is a precious and vital form of creativity that is worth fighting for.”

Genre authors are considered the most vulnerable to displacement by AI, according to the report, with 66% of all those surveyed listing romance authors as “extremely threatened”.

They were followed closely by writers of thrillers (61%) and crime (60%).

Some of the research participants envisioned a dystopic two-tier market emerging where the human-written novel becomes a “luxury item” while mass-produced AI-generated fiction is cheap or free.

Despite this, overall sentiment in UK fiction is not anti-AI, with 80% of respondents agreeing that AI offers benefits to parts of society.

A third of novelists (33%) said they use AI in their writing process, mainly for “non-creative” tasks such as information search.

Literary creatives feel that copyright laws have not been respected or enforced since the emergence of generative AI.

They called for informed consent and fair remuneration for the use of their work, along with transparency from big tech companies and support in getting it from the UK Government.

Professor Gina Neff, executive director of the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, said: “Our creative industries are not expendable collateral damage in the race to develop AI.

“They are national treasures worth defending.

“This report shows us how.”

The majority (86%) of literary creatives surveyed supported an “opt in” principle for AI training, where rights-holders grant permission before AI scrapes any work and are paid accordingly.

The most popular option was for AI licensing to be handled collectively by an industry body – a writers’ union or society – with half of novelists (48%) selecting this approach.

The report, published in partnership with the Institute for the Future of Work and called The Impact of Generative AI on the Novel, will be published on the Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy website mctd.ac.uk/