Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are among 700 industry supporters of new anti-AI campaign: ‘Stealing our work is not innovation’

More than 700 artists, writers and creators, including Scarlett Johansson, Cate Blanchett and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, have united behind a new anti-AI campaign denouncing tech companies that exploit copyrighted works without permission.

As lawmakers on both sides of the Atlantic weigh new rules for AI training data, the campaign argues, “Stealing our work is not innovation. It is not progress. It is theft, pure and simple.”

For Johansson, Blanchett, Gordon-Levitt and hundreds of others, the fight over authorship is not just about protecting their own interests, but also about the U.S. creative sector as a whole, which includes film, television, music, publishing and digital media and “supports millions of jobs, stimulates economic growth and projects cultural power worldwide,” the statement said. This ecosystem is threatened, the letter says, because AI developers often scrap creative work without permission, compensation or…