IF THERE’S been a buzzword of the past year and a half it’s possibly “existential.” Especially if it’s paired up with the word “threat.” 

A cursory Google of recent news will see the phrase used in countless headlines, on just about any subject you care to name. Often it’s entirely justified – with the return of Trump to the White House and the cultural acceleration towards the far right just about everywhere else, there is an alarming – and growing – number of communities facing a very real threat to their continued existence.

But sometimes the argument is a little more nuanced, more subtle, although not necessarily less apocalyptic. And not all threats are political ones. For instance, the increased use of AI threatens to affect the ongoing viability of a number of careers, including those in the “creative industries.” 

The fundamental problem is that with the advent of first the internet, then advances in mobile computing and now AI, we have been living through a period of sustained hysteresis, where technological advances far outstrip the abilities of our social mechanisms and institutions to keep up with them. Thus we have situations such as those outlined by Professor Margaret Hefferman in these pages where she pointed out that a visual artist today can’t expect to even make £12,500 a year. Similarly, research by the Arts Council in 2017 indicated a dramatic and ongoing slump in the earnings of novelists between 2011 and the publication of the research.

The question has now become what to do about it. No-one wants to see a world where cultural production becomes the sole preserve of the independently wealthy — however, successive Tory and New Labour neoliberal governments have effectively removed the network of art centres, community colleges and grants that allowed working-class entrants to a (slightly more) level playing field. 

Recent research by The Guardian points to the increasing crowding out of working-class artists. One of the respondents, the Turner Prize-winning Jesse Darling, indicated the shrinking of the welfare system, which was once the vital security net that allowed generations of nascent working-class artists like Darling, Jarvis Cocker and, oh, David Bowie to find their feet as artists without being immediately crippled by exorbitant university fees (when they can actually find university courses which will take them on in the first place, that is). 

Art benefits all in society, acting as its collective voice and sometimes even its conscience, but only if all of society can participate, and another consequence of the Starmer government’s current war on welfare is that it excludes marginalised and working-class voices from participation in the arts even further.

Prof Hefferman is undoubtedly correct when she suggests that remedial action must be taken as a matter of urgency and while a greater political commitment to arts councils and artist subsidy would be greatly welcome, it’s worth pointing out that a 2016 review of such funding in Britain found that it was often the victim of class bias and skewed in favour of upper and middle-class applicants.

So, by all means let’s restore the power and influence of the arts councils but let’s also recreate an environment where arts can flourish at all levels of society. We need to start thinking about more radical solutions in the face of new technological changes, such as AI. Hefferman’s suggestion of an artists’ levy on AI scraping or stronger copyright protections are unlikely to be anything other than a short-term solution. 

The argument to be made is that far from being the artists’ friend, copyright has become a hindrance to creativity. It’s no coincidence that the most vocal agitator for the ongoing strengthening and extension of copyright is the Disney Corporation, even as it scoops up the intellectual rights to everything from Star Wars to Doctor Who. The result is content rather than creativity, with the major producers throwing unassailable weight behind a handful of “sure bets” while freezing out the smaller, individual creators.

A more fruitful answer would be to return copyright protections back to the 14 years of the original copyright act (the Statute of Anne, 1709) — with the added proviso that during that period the artists are fully protected from and insured against the ravages of AI. No toothless opt-out clauses, just fair protection and remuneration for artistic endeavour, after which the work enters a more liberal Creative Commons licence.

Also, the time has come to stop thinking in terms of “creative industries” and artistic livelihoods altogether. Not only has this been the exception rather than the rule in the grand scheme of human artistic endeavour, largely confined to the industrial age during which huge populations were crammed into cities and with a need for regular entertainment and distraction from grimly oppressive working lives and/or commutes. 

Ultimately, what’s required is to take a leaf from William Morris and his conception of the role of art in an organic — and socialist — society. Rather than a “career” in an “industry” we have to start thinking of art as an absolute public good, something created by, for and within strong communities — an aspect, out of many, of human endeavour rather than of economics. 

Let’s leave the corporations to their facile AI-generated “content” while we restore art to its original role of an act of communication — of ideas, of thoughts, and of feelings — between living, breathing individuals.