ABBA, Radiohead and The Cure musicians sign AI protest letter against ‘unlicensed use’ of works

LONDON — Musicians from ABBA, Radiohead and The Cure, along with actors and authors, have signed a letter protesting the mining of their artistry to build artificial intelligence tools.

Thousands of artists signed the letter released Tuesday — the latest public warning about AI tools that can spit out synthetic images, music and writings after being trained on vast quantities of human-made works.

“The unlicensed use of creative works to train generative AI is a major, unjust threat to the livelihoods of the people behind these works, and should not be allowed,” the petition said.

Among the signatories is Björn Ulvaeus from the Swedish supergroup ABBARobert Smith and Thom Yorke of The Cure and his bandmates from Radiohead. Also signatories were writers, including Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro and actors Julianne Moore, Kevin Bacon and Rosario Dawson.

Bestselling author James Patterson signed Tuesday’s letter and another open letter last year organized by the Authors Guild, which later filed a lawsuit against AI companies that is still pending in a federal court in New York.