As well as being a huge technology enthusiast, I have always been a big music fan and record collector. Therefore I was intrigued earlier this year when over one thousand musicians announced the release of a rather unusual new collaborative album. The list of these artists included some of my favourite artists such as New Order, Tori Amos, Pet Shop Boys, Kate Bush, and Public Service Broadcasting. The album was called “Is This What We Want?” and there was one aspect of the album which makes it very unusual indeed. The album is made up entirely of the sounds you would hear in an empty concert hall, music venue, or recording studio: there is no singing and no instrumentation on the album at all, just the sound of silence and the occasional cough or sound of a door opening or closing. It can be found on most streaming platforms although be warned it’s not a great listen (unless of course you really like experimental ambient music and/or John Cage!). The intention behind the album becomes clear when you read the album’s tracklisting. Read in order the tracklist spells out the phrase “The British Government Must Not Legalise Music Theft To Benefit AI Companies”. What does this mean? Unlike many jurisdictions, the UK does not allow text and data mining for commercial purposes. Text and data mining is however one of the ways in which artificial intelligence platforms are trained; AI platforms such as ChatGPT and DeepSeek, regardless of what they are being asked to generate, are producing their outputs by utilising all of the data they have been...