An organization that writes an ethics code and walks away from it eight days later doesn’t have ethics. It has a weather vane with a letterhead.
The Society of Authors just proved it to the whole publishing world. On October 13, 2026, it put its name on a Charter of Ethical AI Use in the Creative Industries, written with the Creators’ Rights Alliance in the UK, the Authors Guild in the US, the Australian Society of Authors, the Writers’ Union of Canada and the New Zealand Society of Authors. On October 21 it emailed members to say it was withdrawing.
Nothing about AI changed in those eight days. Nothing about copyright law changed either. The volume in the comment section went up, and the leadership folded the moment it got loud. I call that disgusting, and I’m not going to soften it.
What was the Ethical AI Charter for the creative industries?
It was a pledge for the businesses around writers. Agents, publishers, producers, prize bodies and trade associations could sign it and promise to use generative AI “in a transparent, responsible and ethical way, balancing the technological benefits with the potentially devastating impact on people and planet.”
The core of it went by the acronym CLEAR: consent first, licensing instead of scraping, ethical use of training data, accountability and transparency, and remuneration and rights. It drew on UNESCO’s principles for responsible AI. The charter even admitted its limits. “It won’t solve the large-scale societal threats that unregulated generative AI poses,” it said.
Read that list again: consent, licensing, payment and transparency. Those are the exact things angry writers demand in every AI thread I’ve covered on this site. The charter handed them a document that said so, signed by author groups on three continents.
And the loudest members hated it.
Why did the Society of Authors withdraw from the Ethical AI Charter?
Because a vocal group of members decided the phrase “ethical AI” was a contradiction, and the leadership agreed with them in public.
The backlash came within days. Authors and publishing people complained online that the charter had been published without consulting members. They also argued that an authors’ society shouldn’t be telling anybody AI could be used ethically at all. On October 16, chief executive Anna Ganley posted a statement that apologized for failing to communicate the charter’s purpose. Then it went much further.
Nothing about AI changed in those eight days.
“There can never be any truly ethical use of generative AI,” the statement said, citing the training of models on copyrighted work without permission or payment, the environmental impact and the harm to vulnerable communities.
The organization helped write a charter about using AI ethically, signed it, launched it with partners in four other countries, and then its own leader announced that the charter’s premise was impossible. Five days later the members got an email. The Society was pulling out “to allow time to listen to members’ views and concerns,” a survey was open, and the matter would come up at the annual general meeting on November 19.
Eight days, start to finish.
Eight days from launch to withdrawal: the Society of Authors and its Ethical AI Charter, October 2026.
The partners didn’t follow. As of October 21 the charter was still live, and no other organization had withdrawn. The Authors Guild, the Australians, the Canadians and the New Zealanders left their names on it. The Society of Authors left its partners holding a document it had helped write.
Is any use of generative AI ethical for writers?
Of course it is. A writer who uses AI to brainstorm titles, check a timeline, outline a chapter or catch a typo hasn’t committed a moral crime. Who exactly gets hurt when a novelist asks a chatbot to check a timeline? Neither has a translator who runs a rough pass through a tool and then does the real work, or a small press that uses it to draft catalog copy. “Never any truly ethical use” sweeps every one of those people into the same bin as the companies that scraped the books.
The training fight is real. Lawsuits over how AI companies built their models are working through the courts, and they target the companies. I’ve written about why calling an individual writer a thief for using a tool is a rotten thing to do. The charter tried to separate the two questions. The statement smashed them back together.
Same with the environmental argument. Data centers use a lot of power and water, and I think the buildout is going to happen no matter how anybody feels about it. The rules decide it: efficiency, alternative energy, and data centers that don’t lean on the public grid. I went through the real numbers in what’s true about AI data centers and the environment. “Never ethical” doesn’t engage with any of that. It just closes the door.
AI helps me write every day, and I still do the writing myself. My books get judged on whether they’re any good. That’s the only test I care about. It’s a tool. Use it or don’t.
Who does the Society of Authors speak for when it rejects all AI use?
Not all of its members, that’s for sure.
Plenty of working authors use these tools now. Six in ten writers use AI, according to the survey I covered in 61% of writers use AI.
Some use them heavily, most use them lightly, and a lot of them keep quiet about it because they’ve watched what happens to writers who admit it in public. I’ve covered that fear in how shame drives artists underground, and the hostility behind it is what I call AI Derangement Syndrome. Those writers pay dues too. An authors’ society exists to protect authors. That includes the ones who opened ChatGPT this morning to fix a stubborn paragraph.
The Society of Authors signed an Ethical AI Charter, then said no AI use can ever be ethical, then quit the charter. Call that what it is: a weather vane.Share on X
When the chief executive of your own society says there can never be any truly ethical use of a tool you use, she has just called you unethical. Not the tech companies. You. Who’s going to stand up at the November meeting and argue the other side after that? Very few, I’d bet.
That’s the real damage here. The charter was a middle position: protect the creators, demand consent and payment, and let people use the tools in the open. The middle is exactly where an organization like this should stand. The leadership walked out of the middle and planted itself next to the angriest people in the room.
Leaders are supposed to take heat for a position they believe in. If the Society didn’t believe in the charter, it shouldn’t have signed it. If it did believe in it, it should have defended it. A society that signs and then runs has made the one choice that’s indefensible either way.
What does “keep a human in the loop” mean for AI in publishing?
Ganley used the phrase herself. “There is a saying used around AI use: ‘Always keep a human in the loop,'” she told The Bookseller, and argued that the publishing industry is built on human writers, illustrators, translators, narrators and photographers.
She’s right about the industry. She’s wrong about the phrase. A human in the loop means a person makes the decisions, checks the output and takes responsibility for what goes out the door. Nothing in it says a machine can’t touch the work. The most famous example is a Soviet officer who refused to believe a false missile alarm in 1983, and I wrote about him for Petrov Day. He used the machine. He didn’t obey it.
A writer who uses AI and edits every line is a human in the loop. A translator who checks the machine’s draft against the original is a human in the loop. The charter protected exactly that kind of work, with consent, licensing and transparency built in. The statement threw it away.
Some of the charter’s partners have their own complications. The Authors Guild runs a Human Authored certification for its members, a badge for books written by humans. I see little value in labels like that. They’re gatekeeping with a fee attached, and most readers just want a good book. But the Guild at least kept its name on a document that says ethical use is possible.
What should Society of Authors members do before the November 19 AGM?
Show up. That’s the first thing.
Are you a member who uses AI to outline, research or clean up a draft? Then you’ve just been told, by your own society, that nothing you do with it can ever be ethical. Are you going to let that stand because speaking up feels risky? The survey is open now, and it counts your answer the same as anybody else’s. Fill it in and explain how you use the tools and why you think the charter was the right call.
Then go to the meeting, or send someone who will speak for you. Ask the leadership a simple question: if the charter was wrong, why did you sign it, and if it was right, why did you run? Make them answer it in front of the membership.
And if you’re a member who hates AI and cheered the withdrawal, ask yourself something too. Do you want a society that represents only the authors who agree with you, or one that protects every author who pays dues? The day the wind shifts, a weather vane turns on you just as fast.
My take
The Society of Authors wrote a charter that asked for consent, licensing, payment and transparency, signed it with partners in four other countries, and ran from it in eight days because the loudest members yelled. Cowardice is the only word for it. Its own members who use AI as a tool just got told they’re unethical by the people paid to protect them. Members, go to the November 19 meeting and say so.
A weather vane with a letterhead
Five partners still stand behind the charter, and it’s still a reasonable document. The Society of Authors can sign it again whenever its leadership finds the nerve. I wouldn’t hold my breath.
If you’re a working author who uses AI and wonders whether that makes you a fraud, it doesn’t. Your book will be judged on the page, the same way books always have been. The AI & Writing Hub collects everything I’ve written on using these tools well, and if you want help getting a book written well, with or without AI in the workflow, look at my professional writing services. A weather vane points wherever the wind blows. Writers deserve an organization with a spine.
I wrote this book about what goes right when you use AI properly: it amplifies your thinking and leaves the judgment with you. It’s the case the Society of Authors refused to make.
