Some of the 11,500 people signing a petition against the unlicensed use of creative works for AI training are Kevin Bacon, Kazuo Ishiguro, Robert Smith, and Sidney Blumenthal.

"The unlicensed use of creative works for training generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind those works and must not be permitted," the petitioners warn.

The petition comes at a time when lawmakers are grappling with how they should respond to data scraping for generative AI development. The Financial Times reported last week that the U.K. government intends to consult on an "opt out" model for AI content scraping.

According to The Guardian, the petition was organized by British composer Ed Newton-Rex, a former exec at Stability AI, who said creatives are exceptionally worried. He says AI companies "dehumanize" people's art and work by referring to them as "training data".