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The writer is a novelist

In 1989, we bought a small house in the shadow of the medieval city walls of Carcassonne. This was the beginning of my love for Languedoc — the history, the mysterious mystery hidden in the landscape, the endless blue sky, the light of the mountains at dusk. It will inspire my first historical adventure novel, Labyrinthwhich will go on to be translated into 38 languages ​​and sold in over 40 countries. Its worldwide success is the reason I was able to quit my day job and become a full-time writer.

Imagine my dismay, therefore, to discover that those 15 years of dreaming, researching, planning, writing, rewriting, editing, visiting libraries and archives, translating Occitan texts, finding the original which 13th-century documents, being an expert on Catharism, are obviously important. for nothing. Labyrinth just one of several of my novels that got scrapped The large Meta language model. It was done without my consent, without payment, without notice. This is theft.

I am excited about artificial intelligence and its possibilities. Using technology to develop, improve, experiment and change is part of any artist’s toolkit. We need time to create and, perhaps, AI can give us breathing space to do the things we love. But intellectual property theft is an attack on creativity and copyright, and will undermine the UK’s world-leading economy. The time has come to get together and act.

It’s been a busy month in parliament for AI. On December 3, the Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society launched the report “A Brave New World?” at a meeting of the All-Party Parliamentary Writers Group. This survey of about 13,500 authors on AI behavior throws a hand-grenade into a one-sided debate about illegal scraping and crawling of authors’ work and the misconceptions that surrounding it.

On December 9, Baroness Beeban Kidron convened creators to discuss three proposed changes to the data (use and access) bill currently going through parliament, which would make UK copyright law enforceable in the age of generative AI.

This comes ahead of a government consultation on how to improve trust between sectors, ensuring that AI developers give rights holders greater clarity on how their material can be used. So far, so good. Furthermore, when the consultation framework was revealed, it became clear that it was an attempt to weaken UK copyright laws in the name of “progress” by suggesting that creators and rights holders should to “opt out” of their work because. used for AI training.

When the House of Lords debated Kidron’s amendments this week, peers were unanimous in their disdain for the government’s plans, with Kidron observing: “The government is selling the creative industries down the river .”

AI companies present creators as opposed to change. We are not. Every artist I know has interacted with AI in one way or another. But a distinction must be made between AI that can be used in good ways – for example, medical diagnosis – and the foundations of AI models, where companies basically steal the work of creative people for their own income. Let’s not forget that AI companies rely on creators to build their models. Without strong copyright laws that ensure creators can make a profit, AI companies will lack the high-quality material that is essential for their future growth.

The UK has one of the most thriving, innovative and profitable creative industries in the world, worth £108bn a year. The publishing industry alone contributes £11bn a year and has the potential to grow by another £5.6bn over the next decade. It supports 84,000 jobs and leads the world in publishing exports, with 20 percent growth predicted in 2033. In the film industry, 70 percent of the top-20 grossing films in 2023 are based on book.

One of the reasons for this worldwide success is because we have strong and fair copyright laws. The UK pioneered this. The Statute of Anne, passed in 1710, aimed to encourage learning and support the book trade, creating a framework in which the writers who created the work retained full rights, making it illegal for publishers to reproduce the work without permission or payment.

It is this robust and fair system that the government will undermine if it pursues an opt-out – or “reservation of rights” in the new parlance – rather than an opt-in model. Why should we writers shoulder the burden of preventing AI companies from stealing our work? If a producer wants to make a film out of it, or a radio show, or a theater piece, they come to us and we make a deal. Although the technology is new and evolving, the principle is the same. AI is no different. It’s not just a matter of fairness, or of acting illegally, but of economic growth. If creatives have to spend time trying to track down AI companies to stop scrapping our work, we’ll have less time to work. This, in turn, will diminish our global creative industries and harm growth.

I fully support the government in its determination to harness the future and become a world leader in AI innovation. Sixty years later, at the Labor party conference in 1963, Harold Wilson spoke of the “white heat of the technological revolution” and a “university in the air”. This Labor government is following forward-thinking measures. But weakening copyright is not the way to do it. Placing the burden on authors and other creators to opt out is not the way to do it. Without original work, there is nothing.

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The Home Office has ordered a review of the treatment of people with autism targeted by the Government’s Prevention of deradicalisation programme, in recognition that many minors with neurodiversity diagnoses are presenting cases of counter-terrorism.

The notification follows a Financial Times review in October highlighted the extent of the trend, with specialist psychiatrists estimating that 13 percent of police counter-terrorism work involves people with autism, a condition that affects only 1 percent of the population. .

Home secretary Yvette Cooper announced new measures this week to strengthen the UK’s Prevent programme, which aims to identify people at risk of extremism and steer them away from violence. He said the program must adapt to the growing number of young people who are attracted to violent ideologies online.

The Home Office will carry out a strategic review to improve the support provided to those targeted by Prevention “who are neurodivergent or suffer from mental illness”, he said.

When people with a suspected diagnosis are included, a quarter of those receiving deradicalisation support from Prevent’s worst “Channel” stream are autistic, according to a 2021 internal Home Office review seen by FT and reported on the investigation.

The Home Office has never confirmed the existence of this research and – until now – has not publicly recognized a link between autism and Avoid referrals. The Homeland Security Analysis and Insight team, which compiled the 2021 study, will provide input on the new review.

Experts who contributed to the FT investigation said that while autistic people are less likely to break the law than their neurotypical peers, they may be more vulnerable to grooming and radicalisation. The National Autistic Society warns that some autistic children are referred to Prevent because of a lack of adequate healthcare provision to support their condition.

However, the police and intelligence agencies have repeatedly drawn attention to the increasing number of children involved in terrorist activities. Currently, 13 per cent of those investigated by MI5’s counter-terrorism teams are under 18 – a three-fold increase in the last three years. The number of under-18s arrested for terrorism offenses rose from three in the year to September 2010, to 32 in the year ending September 2024. Children aged 11 to 15 now make up of 40 percent of all Prevent referrals.

This trend is causing concern beyond the UK. A ROLE published earlier this month by the Five Eyes’ security allies – Britain, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand – said spy chiefs were “increasingly concerned” about the radicalization of minors who continue to plan or commit terrorist activities.

The paper calls for better cooperation between law enforcement and academia to understand the “factors of vulnerability” around youth radicalization, including “neurodiversity and mental health”.

Jonathan Hall, the UK’s independent reviewer of terrorism legislation, was one of the first to call out the prevalence of autism among referrals to Prevent.

“It is not surprising that a social disruptor as big as the internet should expose new vulnerabilities, such as the presence of isolated neurodivergent children in counter-terrorism casework,” he said in FT.

“A policy review should be welcomed, but it should be practical, and I suggest that if it is to be effective it should start with the experiences of children and young people.”

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Thousands fewer pupils could be entitled to the full package of special education support in England under a raft of changes being considered by Sir Keir Starmer, as Labor seeks to improve the “neglected”. that system.

Senior government officials say ministers are looking at legislation to reform the system by which children with special educational needs (SEN) get the support plans they need to access a full state aid.

Education, health and support plans (EHCPs) were introduced in 2014 as part of the Children and Families Act, which sets out the support that local authorities have a legal obligation to provide to children with the highest needs.

EHCPs open up additional help for those who qualify, including one-to-one support, transport services and, in some cases, access to expensive private education.

The proposals being considered include changes to the system behind the provision of support, which is likely to affect children at the “mild” end of conditions such as ADHD and autism spectrum disorder, according to a senior official. .

“This means thousands of fewer students are getting statements,” an official said.

The move is just one prong in a wider suite of reforms introduced to the SEN system by Starmer.

The government is looking to significantly increase provision for special education support within mainstream schools, including £740 million announced this month for local authorities to create new SEN places.

It also promises to improve early intervention services offered in schools to prevent students’ conditions from worsening over time.

Starmer said this week that his “legacy at SEN is a system that has been neglected to the point of complete crisis”.

“We need to change, put in place an earlier intervention system, and make sure it’s the main priority,” he told parliament’s Liaison Committee on Thursday.

“If we don’t change the way we provide special education, we will never be able to close the gap and fix the problem,” he added.

Experts say the SEN system is broken due to demand for EHCPs ballooning and putting huge strain on stretched council budgets.

Meanwhile, they argue, very limited support is offered to people with SEN who do not get a statement, driving families and schools to seek out EHCPs for some less severe circumstances.

Local authorities have amassed deficits in their high-needs budgets of around £3.3bn this year, according to the IFS, which warns this could rise to over £8bn over the next three years.

Outcomes First Group, England’s largest provider of specialist education for children with SEN, released a report this week calling on the government to redesign the EHCP process with a tiered model of assessment.

The proposed model will limit statements to “more severe cases of SEN that require comprehensive and specialist intervention”, while offering simpler and more targeted interventions to people with less complex needs.

Luke Sibieta, research fellow at the Institute for Fiscal Studies think-tank, said that given the increasing number of students with EHCPs, “it would not be surprising if the government started thinking about gradations”.

Sibieta added that the “missing part of the current system” is state support for those whose needs do not qualify for a full EHCP right.

The number of children and young people needing special education support in England has doubled in the past decade, from 240,000 in January 2015 to 576,000 in January 2024, according to the National Audit Office.

Almost five percent of all students now have a special needs plan, up from a steady rate of 2.9 percent between 2000 and 2018, according to the IFS.

Rising demand has outstripped funding, despite a real-terms increase in the government’s most-needed budget of more than 50 per cent over the past decade – from £6.8bn in 2015 to more than £10bn in 2024.

The government said there were “too many children whose needs are not being met and parents are forced to fight for support”, adding that it was determined to “restore confidence in families” across the country.

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Saudi authorities have repeatedly warned Germany about the man they say carried out Friday’s attack on a Christmas market in the eastern German city of Magdeburg that left five dead and dozens injured, according to German security officials.

Officials said Riyadh had alerted German authorities to the suspected attacker, Taleb al-Abdulmohsen, a Saudi dissident who described himself as an ex-Muslim, boasting on social media that ” something big will happen in Germany”. It is unclear whether police acted on the warnings.

Al-Abdulmohsen’s numerous posts on the social media site X have revealed him to be a fierce critic of Islam who has railed against Muslim immigration to Europe and in recent months has shown growing hostility towards the authorities. in German, which he accused of trying to censor him.

Five people were killed and more than 200 injured on Friday night when a man crashed into a Christmas market in Magdeburg. Al-Abdulmohsen, the suspected attacker, was arrested at the scene. Authorities described him as a 50-year-old doctor from Saudi Arabia who came to Germany in 2006 and worked as a psychiatrist in Bernburg, south of Magdeburg.

The attack darkened the mood in a country already struggling with a deep economic collapse and a round of political uncertainty following the collapse of Chancellor Olaf Scholz’s shaky three-party coalition government in November.

It comes nearly eight years after an Islamic State militant plowed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 and injuring 49 in one of Germany’s worst terror attacks.

Scholz visited Magdeburg on Saturday, calling the incident a “terrible act” and vowing that “no stone will be left unturned” to investigate the crime.

Al-Abdulmohsen is an activist who publicly renounced Islam after leaving Saudi Arabia and created a website to help opponents of the regime in Riyadh – especially women – flee the country and apply for of asylum in Europe.

His interviews and social media posts have revealed him as a militant critic of Islam who harbors sympathy for the Alternative for Germany (AfD), a far-right party that strongly opposes Muslim immigration.

In recent months he has become increasingly hostile to Germany, and has been critical of tough hate speech laws that ban incitement against certain religious or ethnic groups.

He gave several interviews to German newspapers about his activism in 2019, describing himself in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung as “the most aggressive critic of Islam in history”. “If you don’t believe me, ask the Arabs,” he said.

“After 25 years in this business, you’d think nothing would shock you,” wrote Peter Neumann, a terrorism expert at King’s College, London, in X. “But a 50-year-old Saudi ex- Muslim who lives in East Germany, loves the AfD and wants to punish Germany for its tolerance towards Islamists – that’s not on my radar.

In one of the 2019 interviews, he said that he “separated” from Islam in 1997.

“I find life in Saudi Arabia a test, you have to pretend to be a Muslim and follow all the rituals,” he said. “I knew I could no longer live in fear and when I realized that even anonymous activism would put my life in danger as an ex-Muslim in Saudi, I applied for asylum.”

On the other hand, he said he wrote posts criticizing Islam on an internet forum run by jailed activist Raif Badawi and subsequently received threats on his life.

“They want to ‘slaughter’ me when I return to Saudi Arabia,” he said. “It would not have been reasonable to expose myself to the danger of having to return and then be killed.”

In recent months, he appears to have moved away from activism and moved to rail against the German authorities, peddling conspiracy theories more often associated with the nationalist right. In some posts he alleged that he was censored and persecuted by the German authorities.

In a post on X in November setting out “the demands of the Saudi liberal opposition” he called on Germany to “protect its borders against illegal immigration”.

“It has become apparent that Germany’s open borders policy is (former chancellor Angela) Merkel’s plan to Islamize Europe,” he wrote. He also asked Germany to repeal sections of its penal code that he claimed “limit . . . freedom of speech” by “making it an offense (sic) to insult or degrade religious doctrines or practices”.

His X profile features a machine gun and claims that “Germany is chasing Saudi asylum-seeking women, inside and outside Germany, to destroy their lives”.

In an interview earlier this month with an anti-Islam blog he accused the German authorities of conducting a covert operation to hunt down ex-Muslims in Saudi while giving asylum to jihadis in Syria.

In recent months his messages have taken on a more threatening tone. “I assure you: if Germany wants war, we will have it,” he wrote to X in August. “If Germany wants to kill us, we will kill them, die or go to prison with pride.”