Industry Committee on Feb. 12th, 2024

[Patrick Rogers]

I feel very strongly about this. We're here as a sort of cultural industries panel, but, members of Parliament, if you think about it as people.... In music, we call it VNIL: voice, name, image and likeness.

It doesn't have to be the extreme example. It doesn't have to be pornographic. It doesn't have to be a prime minister. It could be my daughter. It could be your words in her mouth that she has not consented to. I have grave concerns about that.

I would ask you all to take immediate action on it as soon as you can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

All right, thank you very much.

Ms. Lapointe—

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'll ask Mr. Forget.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Yes.

Mr. Forget, do you have something to add?

[Dave Forget]

I'll keep it brief.

Yes, I think it's in the public interest to keep the public safe. The exact form it takes remains to be seen, but the answer to your question is yes. There should be a mechanism that prevents these types of harms.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much, Mr. Forget.

Go ahead, Ms. Lapointe.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll be sharing my time today with my colleague MP Turnbull.

My first question is for Mr. Rogers.

I noted that one of the suggestions you made in terms of amendments is that AI developers be required to maintain full records of the data used in training and for ingestion copies. What are you hoping to achieve with this amendment? I want to deepen my understanding on that.

[Patrick Rogers]

Again, I take the position that of course it's copyright. It's not even debatable to me. I know some people believe otherwise, but I don't understand it. In order for the rest of the copyright framework to work, I have to know what it was trained on, so the people who rightfully deserve to be paid for that training can be paid.

Could I very quickly add something I want to say in response to Mr. Garon's questions?

Two years ago, when this was science fiction, it was easy to imagine a space-robot head learning all the music and writing its own music. Now that we see the general application of it, it is ripping off bands you know and love with new songs that are rip-offs, or generating an image with copyright symbols in it because they ripped off a photo with a copyright logo in it. We know that it's stealing and scraping.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Okay.

My next question is directed at both Ms. Kelly and Mr. Forget.

In terms of intellectual property, privacy issues and creative control, how can legislation outside of the Copyright Act help in terms of generative AI bad actors?

[Marie Kelly]

I think it's going to be a lot of threading together of different things.

Copyright is key. You are hearing us say that as actors. I think you need to have protection on the data you're looking at in Bill C-27. I think it's very important for us to look at how it's scraped and what they're doing with it. We need to have knowledge about where this data is coming from in order for us to even be able to trace bad actors—and good actors who just happen to take it and may not know.

We're looking at things like this: What are you going to do with a worker who has their data taken from them by their employer so they can generate a program—say, a training session, etc.? Why not put something in the Employment Standards Act that protects all workers against having their name, image and likeness taken without consent, control and compensation?

Privacy laws have to be increased so we have those protections.

I'm sure there's more than that. This is going to be a patchwork.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

Okay.

Mr. Forget.

[Dave Forget]

I think it's a good illustration of the dichotomy of individual rights versus collective rights. We made the point a little bit earlier about the extent to which we don't think there's a comprehensive view on what we would call collective rights. We're in the business of negotiating collective rights, so we see this all the time.

I'd say, in terms of bad actors, that one of the remedies to bad actors is encouraging good actors. The way you do that is by having order in the marketplace and by having a predictable marketplace where you have music, film and TV widely available in a way that is affordable so that customers can engage and buy. That's how you discourage bad actors.

I'd like to leave you with one thought that I think is relevant here. We talked a lot about the extent to which the problems that arise with.... By the way, one of the direct answers to your question is that one of the ways we can discourage this is to prevent the dilution of value by ensuring that those players who are maybe not bad actors but are surfing off others' existing work to create new things acknowledge it, have the consent and have a model. There's an economic imperative here, too. We're happy to—we make these agreements all the time—sit down and negotiate what a licence agreement may be, and we're seeing more of that happening, so it's obviously possible.

My last comment would be to point out the perverse logic. The same entities that are busy mining copyrighted works to create something new want to disregard the copyright on the input but then seek the protections of copyright on the output. I want to point out that—just to get it on the record—humans are the creative drivers here, not software. Also, coming back to make the connection with an orderly, predictable marketplace, it's problematic to have material that you have not licensed feed into something that isn't made by a human.

I guess the question is this: What becomes of that in terms of...? When I think about the work that our members do, I see that it's millions of dollars of investment in creating film, television and digital media. There's a lot at stake, and investors are going to want to know that they have a path to be able to exploit those works and generate revenue.

I'm sorry for the long answer, but there were many parts to the question.

[Viviane LaPointe, Liberal, Sudbury, ON]

It was very good testimony. Thank you.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

I'm sorry, Mr. Turnbull, but we might have some more time at the end. Bear that in mind.

The floor is yours, Mr. Garon.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Ms. Desrochers, witnesses have appeared before our committee and told us we should perhaps have a federal government registry to increase the security of the environment in which all kinds of artificial intelligence models are deployed. When they have a high-impact model, companies should hand over its code and get a risk mitigation plan.

Getting back to cultural diversity, what's interesting is that the representatives of the Googles, Apples, Facebooks and Amazons of the world who have testified here defined high-impact and high-risk models involving people's health, safety and, I believe, integrity. Do you think cultural diversity should be included in this definition? If so, how could it be operationalized?

[Marie-Julie Desrochers]

I think that cultural diversity, which we call the diversity of cultural expressions, should be taken into consideration. I could give you an expanded answer to that question, but we should definitely reflect on indicators and ways of measuring the impact of the development of those systems on the diversity of our cultural expressions.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

There are concerns about the fact that the more culture is produced globally—I think we could say there's a centralized culture—the less it naturally concerns diversity.

Here's a thought: suppose that, here in Canada, we went much further than our partners in protecting copyright, photographs, literary works and so on. That would obviously mean less material to train the AI models, and our works would therefore be included in AI results to a lesser degree.

Consequently, if we overprotect our works, wouldn't that be a factor causing Quebec culture to disappear from global culture?

[Marie-Julie Desrochers]

That's a good question.

First, even if all our works were processed by machines, they would still constitute a minority in all the information they process. Consequently, I don't think that would be enough to protect the diversity of our cultural expressions or to adequately reflect our culture in those models.

Many people are now examining the issue of minority languages and cultures. All kinds of projects are being developed to determine how AI can help propel those minority cultures or to ensure that they're protected.

Lastly, we can consider the possibility of putting innovative solutions in place to ensure that our culture continues to occupy its position in an environment where AI has been installed, but while retaining control over our data and stories as much as possible. All kinds of proposals are currently circulating.

It's acknowledged that the development of AI reproduces the dynamics of domination and hegemony that we already see in the environment. Consequently, we shouldn't sell our available data cheaply, without consent or in conditions we don't control, and hope that Quebec culture is suddenly better represented in AI systems.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Masse, go ahead.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

It's been interesting in terms of what we've heard from a number of different witnesses. A lot of times, they're telling us to get something done, and then they're also telling us to make sure we're consistent with the United States and Europe to some degree. I don't know how we'd do both.

Perhaps I can go to Ms. Noble on this. We've talked at a high level here with regard to how you can be exploited by AI, but I know that ACTRA represents children actors as well. I'm wondering what it's like in the empowerment model now in terms of vulnerability, even outside of AI, in terms of going and trying to get a contract, giving up the visual rights and your voice and all the other different things that could even be captured without AI, being as sophisticated as it is now because of recordings and the things that can happen, and then how scary that can be for the future and how maybe this can disempower more people in the future if we don't get it right.

[Eleanor Noble]

We would completely lose our livelihood. We would just be replaced. We're already seeing that threat at our heels. We've heard of background performers being scanned when they're going on set, being brought to a separate room to be scanned without their knowledge or proper informed consent. Then they no longer have a full schedule of shooting. They've lost a lot of work, because they're already being replaced with AI and not being compensated for it. This is at our heels. We've already heard the threats in Marvel movies with big Hollywood stars. It's happening to them as well. They want to scan them, replicate them and not have to use them in sequels.

This is a huge threat. We spoke about dubbing and how this is a huge market, especially in Quebec, when it comes to dubbing Netflix series. This will all disappear overnight. The technology has already been made. Thousands of performers, specifically in Quebec, will completely lose their livelihood overnight. I myself have made my living off it for 30 years.

There are numerous areas. Every threat.... We don't know what happens now when we go into an audition. Most of our auditions are self-taped. We send it off into the cyberworld. We have no control over where it goes or what will happen with it. Those are just simply auditions. We're not paid for auditions in the first place. If it's utilized in any other way—to scrape or scan or use in nefarious ways or do whatever—we have no control over that.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

I was at a couple of conferences in the United States this summer for part of my Canada-U.S. stuff. Even some of the companies were talking about how they're trying to fix their ethnic and cultural biases of actual input going into artificial intelligence and how they're building their models. They admitted that there are major deficiencies.

I guess what you're saying is that the information that's now collected on the artist could then be replicated and used in biased representations across multimedia platforms for generations, and the person could still basically be walking around there.

It's similar to what you said, Mr. Rogers, with regard to the artist. I thought that was really interesting, because you're right. I was here for the copyright review. Part of it was that they could literally hear themselves, because they're living longer. That can also be a legacy of the person.

Just quickly, I know that we all sign contracts sometimes where we give away our privacy and it's all mishmash and stuff like that. Is it the same in the industry? Do artists have to figure out what they're giving up with these long forms and everything else at the last moment? Is that kind of vulnerability out there?

[Marie Kelly]

That's a good question.

I would like to give you a little bit of insight into the life of performers. Number one, they know very well that if they are difficult, or perceived as difficult on the set, that will get around, and they won't get another job. Performers show up wanting to please the director, the producer, and people on the set. They show up far too often in the morning at 6 a.m., showing up for their hair and make-up. They're given a contract and told, “Just sign this, or else.” They're given a thick contract. They're not lawyers. They don't have a lawyer with them, but they know the reality that if they don't sign, giving away whatever it is that contract asks them to give away, they're not going to get that job, and maybe another job.

They're precarious workers who really have to be concerned about their next job. They can't be the ones who are holding up the rights that they should have in this society. You've heard about the struggling performer or the struggling actor who has to have a second job, often in a bar or a restaurant. That's the truth. They can't pay the rent on the income they make working in the job they love, and then they have to face the realities of being perceived as not being easy to work with.

They sign these contracts, and they don't know what they're giving away.

[Brian Masse, NDP, Windsor West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Joël Lightbound]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Généreux, you have the floor.