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US Authors Guild launches 'human authored' certification in battle against AI-generated books
The US Authors Guild has launched a certification process for writers to confirm that their books “emanated from the human intellect” and not from artificial intelligence (AI).
Its “Human Authored” certification enables authors “to distinguish their work in an increasingly AI-saturated market”.
Currently the certification, which can be applied for via an online portal, is only open to Authors Guild members, but the Guild plans to expand the programme to include multiple authors as non-members.
Accredited authors will be able to use the “Human Authored” logo on their book covers and other promotional materials to demonstrate their work has been done without AI.
Authors Guild CEO Mary Rasenberger said: “The Human Authored initiative isn’t about rejecting technology — it’s about creating transparency, acknowledging the reader’s desire for human connection and celebrating the uniquely human elements of storytelling.”
“Authors can still qualify if they use AI as a tool for spell-checking or research, but the certification connotes that the literary expression itself, with the unique human voice that every author brings to their writing, emanated from the human intellect.”
The Authors’ Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS), which last year conducted a survey of over 13,500 authors’ views on AI and compiled a 40-page report, which it presented to the government in December, told The Bookseller it welcomed the “Human Authored” idea.
Richard Combes, deputy chief executive of ALCS, told The Bookseller: “Our colleagues in the US are showing what can be done to address the AI challenge, not just on better labelling with the Human Authored initiative, but also the Created by Humans project, a transparent, consent-based approach, enabling access to works for AI training.
“We must look at developing similar ideas here rather than pursuing unworkable and unbalanced changes to our gold-standard copyright rules.”
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The UK Government is currently engaged in a consultation process with the creative industries “on proposals to give creative industries and AI developers clarity over copyright laws”. The government’s proposals suggest introducing “an exception to copyright law for AI training for commercial purposes, while allowing rights holders to reserve their rights, so they can control the use of their content”, plus transparency rules.
The results of the consultation will be published when it closes on the 25th February 2025.
The use of copyrighted work to train generative AI has become a much-discussed topic in publishing. AI in various forms is now being used in audiobooks, across translation, and publisher Spines pledged to publish 8,000 titles with AI in 2025.
HarperCollins became the first mainstream Anglophone publisher to sign a contract with a tech company to trial selling access to a limited number of its authors’ books to train AI large language models (LLMs). It followed on from a number of academic publishers that had already signed multi-million-pound deals with technology firms to feed their backlists to LLM chatbots.
Last summer Informa, the parent company of academic publishers Taylor & Francis and Routledge, revealed it is set to make $75m from AI deals. While Wiley is set to make $44m from two AI partnerships.
The Society of Authors last year wrote to AI firms demanding "appropriate remuneration" and consent for the use of its members’ work.
A Writers’ Guild of Great Britain survey on writers and AI published in 2023 found that 65% of respondents believed that increased use of AI would reduce their income from writing, while 61% were worried that AI could replace jobs in their craft area.
