"Yet we should never forget that the product of work isn’t only the work—it’s also the worker." That is a quote from the author Robin Sloan, which I think is very apt to tonight's discussion. I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for tabling this motion, his Sinn Féin colleagues and all the work done for artists here in Ireland to protect what is such a treasure within our society. I thank the organisations listed in the motion, the collectives and union organisations that have fought tooth and nail to make sure that artists can survive in a society that does not reward art. It is an anomaly in our society that we remunerate certain pursuits in life but not others. We pay people to pursue corporate goals and aims but we do not pay people to pursue art, yet we all consume and value art. It is that which enriches our society more than anything else. It is important to name all of that because it is the context into which AI has now come and has not just disrupted, but completely annihilated the ability of artists to continue making a viable living in the pursuit of their art and their craft. I want to call out a few more truths before I get into some of the specifics in this debate. I am glad that the Government is not opposing the motion and that it can be the start of a conversation we need to have in the Dáil about how AI is impacting on artists. The AI committee has not yet reached our module on the creative industries and how AI intersects with it. I look forward to that happening by the end of this year or perhaps early next year. AI is coming at us from all directions. The Minister of State and I have talked a lot about the climate impact, the impact on labour displacement, algorithmic decision-making in the public sector, and the case for discrimination. There are so many ways in which AI is disrupting our lives and reaching deep into the lives of every citizen here and globally. This one is crucial. The Minister of State spoke a lot about the AI Act in her opening contribution. It is important to call out that part of this motion calls for adequate legislation, regulations and measures to simply deal with this. The way the AI Bill was handled in the past few weeks has not made me confident that the Government is doing this well. Government spokespeople all talk about how we are world leaders in innovation in AI and governance of AI. That is just not a fact, as far as I am concerned. We are not there yet. However, we have the opportunity to do so and to actually hold big tech accountable. I will get through a few points but, ultimately, that is where we get to. It is big tech that is making money. It is the systems that control how music is delivered to our ears that are making money. That is where we need to tackle this. I will get into how we need to be a little less focused on rightsholders as a result of it. That is really part of it for me. Although the legislation and the measures the Minister of State has talked about a lot around the copyright part of this discussion are being looked at at EU level, the EU has chosen to adopt a very light-touch regulatory approach to AI, despite what Government Ministers will say. Unfortunately, I simply do not have faith in that model. We need to move the focus away from rightsholders and instead look at those who control the system and the benefit they get from that, as opposed to artists. I want to talk a little about how the undermining of the skill of artistry and allowing theft of material will ultimately lead to the cessation of the creation of art. That is the direction of travel we are going in unless we tackle this. I want to speak briefly about how Irish music is particularly vulnerable to all of this. I will then arrive back at the business model, which is the issue we just do not tackle head on. This Government certainly does not tackle it head on. I will start with the point about rightsholders. While that is a crucial part of this debate, we are too focused on copyright and those who hold rights to their own creations. We need to acknowledge the fact that services that provide music to music lovers sit upon troves of music data that they can use to train AI and profit from that. They have a potential interest in AI music becoming more popular and accepted because it forces musicians to compete and, perhaps, accept worse royalty payments in the long term. That is a truth we need to acknowledge. As long as they are in control, they are motivated to essentially elevate AI-generated music above artist-created music because they are a profit-driven entity and that will be cheaper to them. Therefore, if low-effort AI audio slop is compensated equally to human songcraft, songwriters will be squeezed out over time and new songwriters, whose copyright is not used in training data and who are not always represented by some of the organisations I have mentioned, will struggle to get a foothold. That is where we need to understand the difficulty with the copyright model being the sole focus. It will benefit those established artists, some of those who are in the Gallery today, the artists we all know and love, whereas it is the artists starting now, not those who started ten years ago, who will be even further disadvantaged because those platforms will be unable to resist the fact that the AI music they helped make will be cheaper for them. We need to look at questions like whether AI music can be copyrightable. That is not settled as it stands, and we will see that evolve over time. I acknowledge that there is one platform that is tackling this, and that is Tidal. From tomorrow, Tidal, which is a music-streaming platform, will no longer pay royalties to 100% AI-generated music. There is no reason Apple, Spotify, YouTube and everybody else should not follow suit, but they will not. We have to legislate for them to do that, and that is the kind of legislation that we can lead in this country. We do not have to wait for Europe; we can do it, and we can have a greater impact as a result of it. It is those systems that are currently benefiting rather than the artists. It is those who control the system where this work is published or who even scrape it from the Internet to feed those AI models. They have a near monopoly when it comes to controlling who sees what art and they need to see a commensurate responsibility imposed on them to treat creators fairly, to protect art and to protect artists. AI slop is not something that creates new things from nothing. Its creations are always limited by the input, but that is going unrecognised, unrewarded and, crucially, unpaid. Allowing slop and the theft of art to go unmitigated will lead to no art being made. These generative AI models cannot create something from nothing; they are all dependent on raw material. They are incapable of creativity. If artists cannot survive, these models will also eventually run out of art to steal and we will not just face the dire situation we are currently in, but will be even worse off. In his opening comments, Deputy Ó Snodaigh gave a comprehensive outline of exactly the depth and breadth of the theft currently happening. Similarly, undermining the skills needed to create will push those creators out of existence because creating music, visual art or any other art is skilled work. It takes decades of people honing their craft and they do it because of the passion to do it, not because there is any monetary gain within it. Much of it is unpaid or low paid, but that creates inherent value to our lives and this tech is minimising what little money artists can currently make. Even when the owners of this tech have not monetised it, it is still undermining the years of investment and graft of artists to create something we all benefit from. Ní fheiceann muid riamh leath den obair a chuireann ealaíontóirí isteach ina gceird. Ní raibh sé riamh éasca a bheith ag obair sna healaíona, ach sa lá atá inniu ann ba chóir go mbeadh rudaí ag fáil níos fearr, ní ag dul chun donais. I want to speak specifically to Irish art, which is particularly under attack. Irish music is readily recognisable around the world and, therefore, very vulnerable to imitation. If you go to YouTube right now and search for, for example, "Irish folk music", you will see a lot of AI slop in the results. If you search for that term, you will get a channel called The Spirit of the Tavern. Within that, you will find a composition, if you like, called "Irish Pub Songs". That video has had four times the views in a six-month period as Lankum's most recent single. That is terrifying to me because Lankum is creating beautiful art. This stuff is synthetic paddywhackery nonsense with just nonsense lyrics in it. That is what we are seeing. Irish artists in particular are vulnerable to this and we need to make sure we protect them. Ultimately, we come back to the fact that these platforms and big tech have developed a business model that is parasitic. Essentially, it is "launch and iterate", "move fast and break things". In this case, they are saying they will capture the market now and monetise later. That is what is happening. They are not making the money now but they know that, unless they control it, they will not be able to make money in time. It is the same business model, the same business mindset, that has made us, the user, the product in the case of social media platforms, and it is why we are on this road to enshittification, as people say when talking about the Internet. If nothing is done, it will ultimately leave us with a powerful monopoly, just as we have seen in other areas, that we will not be able to unpick. Unfortunately, this is simply where we are getting to all the time with big tech. The Government does not yet have the political will to tackle that, to essentially hold big tech accountable, to say to it that this is enough, that the harms being wrought on society are enough and that we have to take control back. I was helped today in preparing for this speech by a friend of mine. Shane Culloty is his name. He is an artist called Winter Aid. I simply want to read out one of his lyrics to finish my speech tonight because this is what we are trying to protect when we do this. This is a song called "The Wisp Sings", which I encourage everyone to listen to after. Let me sleep I am tired of my grief And I would like you To love me, to love me, to love me This is the night when these woods sigh Come with me There are people who cannot speak Without smiling They would take me from your hand Or they would try, they would try This is the murmur of the land This is the sound of love's marching band And how they hold you like a gun And how I sing you like a song I heard when I was young And buried for a night like this Buried for a night, like this

Sentiment score: 0.12