No AI, thanks

Summary

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Business Daily – "No AI, Thanks"

Date: September 18, 2025
Host: Hannah Mullane, BBC World Service

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Episode Overview

This episode concludes a week-long Business Daily series on the business impacts of artificial intelligence (AI). Instead of spotlighting innovation, the discussion turns to those who actively resist AI adoption: authors, filmmakers, artists, audiobook narrators, and small business owners. The episode explores their reasons for pushing back, the risks they face, and whether opting out could ultimately leave them behind.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

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1. The Creative Pushback: Copyright, Authors, and Screenwriters

• Senate Hearings & Copyright Battles

  • David Baldacci (novelist) testified before the US Senate, alleging that AI developers have trained large language models using copyrighted works—including his own—without permission ([02:18]–[04:09]).
  • Quote ([03:00]):

    "I truly felt like someone had backed up a truck to my imagination and stolen everything I'd ever created."
    — David Baldacci

• Collective Legal Action

  • Authors are banding together to sue major tech companies (Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI), as individual lawsuits would be impossible to sustain due to the tech companies' massive resources ([03:33]–[04:09]).

• Fair Use Defense and Counterargument

  • Tech companies claim their use of copyrighted material for training is "transformational" and protected by fair use.
  • Baldacci pushes back:

    "They're taking my work and using it as food to build their large language models… It's not really that transformative."
    ([04:18]–[04:50])

• AI as Competition

  • AI tools are now used to generate books that mimic the style of popular authors, posing new competitive threats ([05:00])

    "It's really galling in a way."
    — David Baldacci

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2. The Arts Under Threat: Filmmaking and Festivals

• Justine Bateman's Stand Against AI in Film

  • Justine Bateman (actor and filmmaker) sees AI as fundamentally destructive to the film industry structure ([06:35]–[07:09]).
  • She launched "Credo 23," a festival exclusively for films made without AI, providing a platform for organic, human creativity:

    "Nothing new will ever come out of Generative AI...where are the filmmakers going to be able to display their new works?"
    ([07:09]–[08:08])

• Industry Downsizing & Job Losses

  • Film and series production has dropped 40% since 2019, partly due to the shift to streaming and AI's ability to replace skilled roles—even actors and cinematographers ([08:14]–[08:53]).

• AI and Artistic Relevance

  • Contrary to popular belief, Bateman argues traditional filmmakers will not be left behind by avoiding AI:

    "You will absolutely be left behind. If you're using AI, you completely stop your forward momentum as an artist...You'll go forward creatively if you don't use AI, you'll do the opposite if you use AI."
    ([09:00])

• Rejecting the "Shortcut" Argument

  • For Bateman, using AI to write scripts or create art represents a shortcut antithetical to true artistry ([09:32]–[10:18]):

    "Would I have it eat something delicious for me as well? I mean, why would I do that? It's pleasurable. I want to do it."
    ([09:38])

    • She asserts that creating impactful films doesn't require vast budgets or AI shortcuts.

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3. The Human Touch: Audiobook Narration

• April Doughty (audiobook narrator) details the craft behind bringing stories to life—emphasizing color-coding lines for character voices, adjusting for pace, and deeply researching topics ([13:09]–[13:49]).

• AI Voices in Audiobooks

  • Audible, the largest audiobook app, recently announced plans for AI-narrated audiobooks ([13:49]).
  • Doughty doesn't fear replacement but worries about degraded listener experience:

    "An AI audiobook read by a robot doesn't arouse any empathy...a robot can't really communicate a story as a human can."
    ([14:09])

• Limits of AI Voices

  • While AI may be convincing in short texts, for longer works the lack of human nuance and emotional resonance is clear ([15:13]):

    "For longer text, it doesn't work because the robot doesn't understand the nuance of human emotion."
    — April Doughty

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4. Small Business Skepticism: Risk, ROI, and Trust

• Reluctance to Embrace AI

  • Gene Marks (CEO, Marks Group) has seen minimal AI adoption among his 600 small and medium business clients across the US ([15:57]–[16:21]).

    "Right now, they just don't trust it."

• Generational and Experiential Factors

  • Many business owners are in their 50s or older—having witnessed imperfect tech launches before ([16:21]):

    "...Still smarting from investing in technology that wasn't quite ready for prime time..."

• Cost, ROI, and Uncertainty

  • Investing in technology is riskier and the returns less immediate than traditional equipment; small firms hesitate absent proven, reliable value ([17:17]–[17:59]).

• Data Security and Privacy Concerns

  • Distrust of big tech and fears about sensitive data exposure in the cloud remain the leading obstacles ([18:07]):

    "...the number one question I get...is the security and privacy of their data. Business owners are not trusting of big tech..."

• Inevitability of Being Left Behind

  • Marks warns that those businesses that avoid AI risk:

    "They'll fall behind to their existing competitors...and they'll also fall behind in recruiting good employees as well."
    ([18:32]–[18:42])

• Practical Advice for Small Businesses

  • Marks suggests leveraging software vendors' AI features rather than building in-house solutions ([18:42]–[19:39]).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• David Baldacci:

  • On AI's use of his novels ([03:00]):

    "I truly felt like someone had backed up a truck to my imagination and stolen everything I'd ever created."

  • On copyright and transformation ([04:18]):

    "They're not really transforming. They're taking my work and using it as food to build their large language models."

• Justine Bateman:

  • On creative stagnation with AI ([09:00]):

    "You will absolutely be left behind. If you're using AI, you completely stop your forward momentum as an artist."

  • On her refusal to use AI ([09:38]):

    "I am a screenwriter. I love writing. Why would I do that? Would I have it eat something delicious for me as well?"

• April Doughty:

  • On AI vs. human storytelling ([14:09]):

    "An AI audiobook read by a robot doesn't arouse any empathy in the listener...a robot can't really communicate a story as a human can."

• Gene Marks:

  • On small business skepticism ([15:57]):

    "Really no one is leaning into AI. No one that I have come across and relying on any AI applications or technologies for their core processes of their business. Right now, they just don't trust it."

  • On data privacy ([18:07]):

    "Business owners are not trusting of big tech, that their data will be secure and protected."

  • On inevitable lag for non-adopters ([18:42]):

    "They'll fall behind to their existing competitors and they'll fall behind to younger generations that will compete against them."

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Key Timestamps

• 01:10 – Introduction – AI’s impact and those choosing a different path
• 02:18 – David Baldacci explains copyright theft via AI model training
• 05:00 – AI-generated books competing with authors on Amazon
• 06:35 – Justine Bateman on why AI endangers film industry structure
• 07:09 – Launch and rationale for the Credo 23 "no AI" film festival
• 09:00 – Bateman: "You'll go forward creatively if you don't use AI"
• 13:09 – April Doughty on human touch in audiobook narration
• 13:49 – Audible’s announcement on AI narration and narrators' concerns
• 15:57 – Gene Marks on small business reluctance and ROI skepticism
• 18:07 – Data privacy as a barrier to small business AI adoption
• 18:42 – Whether non-adopters will be left behind

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Episode Tone & Takeaway

The episode gives voice to thoughtful, passionate resistance: artists and writers defending the value of creative labor, narrators championing human storytelling, and business leaders evaluating risk and trust. The tone alternates between frustration, principle-driven advocacy, and pragmatic caution, highlighting the nuanced debate rather than framing opposition as simply "anti-tech."

The central takeaway: While AI adoption surges in many sectors, strongholds of resistance persist—often motivated by protection of jobs, creative integrity, or simple business prudence. Whether these holdouts are vindicated or left behind remains to be seen.

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Transcript

[Hannah Mullane]

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the uk.

[David Baldacci]

I love ravioli. Since when do you speak Italian?

[Ryan]

Since we partnered with SAP Concur. Their integrated travel and expense platform and breakthrough solutions with AI gave me time back to dive into our financial future. We expand into Europe in 2027, so I'm getting ready.

[David Baldacci]

Well, you can predict the future.

[Ryan]

I can predict. You'll like that message.

[David Baldacci]

What message? Oh, hey, we all got bonuses.

[Ryan]

You can save for college now.

[Gene Marks]

I don't have kids. You don't say SAP Concur helps your.

[David Baldacci]

Business move forward faster. Learn [e-mail] the imperative for businesses has never been clearer. The age of experimentation is over. We're talking transformation and winning at scale from AI that actually drives roi.

[Gene Marks]

We are going through that curve of understanding what the technology really can and.

[David Baldacci]

Cannot do to turning reams of data into real competitive advantage.

[Hannah Mullane]

A lot of these successful companies, they treat data as a product.

[David Baldacci]

I'm Chip Planoxel, host of Resilient Edge, the Smart Executive's Guide to Implementing and Sustaining Change. Paid and presented by Deloitte. Available now wherever you listen to podcasts.

[Hannah Mullane]

Hello and welcome to Business Daily from the BBC World Service. I'm Hannah Mullane. All this week we've been looking at how artificial intelligence, or AI, is changing the business world. And in this, our final episode, we'll hear from those choosing a different path.

[Justine Bateman]

There's no reason for me to ever use it. Like to do what? To write a script for me. I am a screenwriter. I love writing. Why would I do that?

[Hannah Mullane]

As artificial intelligence progresses, we're seeing certain industries and businesses push back. Authors are taking tech companies to court over copyright. Artists are protesting. And a number of small and medium sized enterprises are saying they have no plans to ever use AI. But will resisting the technology mean they fall behind?

[Gene Marks]

They'll fall behind to their existing competitors and they'll fall behind to younger generations that will compete against them. And they will also fall behind in recruiting good employees as well.

[Hannah Mullane]

Today we'll speak to people choosing not to use AI and discuss why some businesses might be against the technology. That's all coming up on this episode of Business Daily.

[David Baldacci]

Let me just start by saying that.

[Justine Bateman]

Today'S hearing is about the largest intellectual.

[David Baldacci]

Property theft in American history. For all of the talk about artificial.

[Justine Bateman]

Intelligence and innovation and the future that.

[David Baldacci]

Comes out of Silicon Valley, here's the truth that nobody wants to admit. AI companies are training their models on stolen material. Period.

[Hannah Mullane]

In July this year, a Senate hearing took place in Washington D.C. in the U.S. looking at how AI companies were training their technology and whether this breached copyright law. David Baldacci is an American novelist. He's written more than 50 books and has sold more than 130 million copies around the world. He gave testimony at the hearing.

[David Baldacci]

My son asked ChatGPT to write a plot they read like a David Baldacci novel. In about five seconds, three pages came out that had elements of pretty much every book I'd ever written, including plot lines, twists, character names, narrative, the works. That's when I found out that the AI community had taken most of my novels without permission and and fed them into the machine learning system. I truly felt like someone had backed up a truck to my imagination and stolen everything I'd ever created.

[Hannah Mullane]

He's one of a group of authors suing a number of AI companies for allegedly using books to train their AI models without permission.

[David Baldacci]

Joining together was really the only option we had. For me to sue Meta individually or Microsoft, it would drain all of my resources. I would be in litigation for 20 years. You know, and you run of the mill writer who's not making a whole lot of money but still has a career and still has books they're producing, they would never be able to go to court individually to sue these behemoth. These are trillion dollar company, they have thousands of lawyers. And I decided we all need to come together, circle wagons to make a stand here because this is the only shot we have to be united in this because otherwise we can't take on these giants individually.

[Hannah Mullane]

And these tech companies, they say that their practice is allowed under the copyright law, is fair use. What's your response to that claim from them?

[David Baldacci]

Well, they're claiming that it's transformational, which means that they're taking my work and transforming it into something else totally unrelated. Therefore it's transformative. They're not really transforming. They're taking my work and using it as food to build their large language models. It's not like they're creating their own stories that are totally different from mine. It's not really that transformative. So guess what's going to happen if they went on this route. Ruling is transformational. Anybody out there that wants to steal somebody else's property can just say, well, what I'm doing is transformational. Sue me.

[Hannah Mullane]

One of the key questions for the courts is going to be whether these AI tools are competing with the books used to make them. Do you see AI as a competitor?

[David Baldacci]

I see AI is allowing other people who are not writers have no interest in writing, but just want to make money to use AI tools to write books. Amazon right now puts a limit on the number of books that someone can publish on a daily basis at three. Now, clearly these people are not writing those books. They're using AI models to generate stories. They're using a software platform that allows them to take my talent and my skill and all the hard work that I put in over the years to create books that then they can sell on Amazon and go, hey, this is just like a David Baldacci novel. You can have it for a dollar. It's really galling in a way.

[Hannah Mullane]

I asked Meta, Microsoft and OpenAI for their response to David's comments. Microsoft have chosen not to provide a statement, and Meta didn't come back to me with any response. By the time of this broadcast, OpenAI, the creators of ChatGPT, said their models empower innovation and are trained on publicly available data and grounded in fair use. Authors aren't the only group of creatives pushing back against artificial intelligence. In 2023, actors and filmmakers in Hollywood protested against AI and how it's impacting the movie industry. One of the longest labor strikes in Hollywood history came to an end after the Writers Guilds of America approved an agreement of a new contract which didn't outlaw the use of AI tools in the writing process, but does set up guardrails to make sure workers are in control of the technology. This pushback against AI has led to a creation of new businesses, too.

[Justine Bateman]

A couple of years ago, I realized how the incorporation of Generative AI was going to pretty much crush the structure of the film business just by the nature of taking out certain roles. You know, when you do that in any sector, you'll kind of collapse the structure of that business.

[Hannah Mullane]

Justine Bateman was an actor in her teens and is best known for her role in American sitcom Family Ties. Now she's a filmmaker and this year launched a film festival in the US called Credo 23. What's different about only features films that haven't used AI?

[Justine Bateman]

I saw that the studios and the streamers were all in on AI. And then I saw that the film festivals were very much incorporating AI, allowing themselves to be funded by these tech bros. And I thought, wow, where's the new? Because nothing new will ever come out of Generative AI because it's just by nature the way it's designed. You're just going to get a regurgitation of whatever it's been fed. I thought, wow, where are the filmmakers going to be able to display their new works? Credo 23 is an organic stamp that we established a couple years ago where you can qualify for the stamp and then have it on your film that tells the audience that no AI was used. And I thought, well, then we've got to have a Credo 23 film festival so that filmmakers who are not using AI can have a place sort of. It's sort of a tunnel through this AI infernal inferno, rather. So we can have some good stuff to show people on the other side of it.

[Hannah Mullane]

So how do you feel it is having an impact on the industry? What's the kind of real world impact that you see?

[Justine Bateman]

We have a reduction in production. First of all, film and series Production is down 40% from the 2019 numbers. A lot of production shifted over onto the streamers laps. And then a couple years ago, they decided they're not going to acquire as many films as they had been. It makes a massive dent in the business. Also, you can replace. Heck, you can replace your cinematographer even. You can place your location, you can replace your actors. So less projects being done and less people being employed for that reason, but also because of the inclusion of AI.

[Hannah Mullane]

In certain aspects, do you think filmmakers could be left behind if they don't embrace new technology like this?

[Justine Bateman]

No, it's the total opposite. You will absolutely be left behind. If you're using AI, you completely stop your forward momentum as an artist by using AI because you're going, I'm done thinking imaginatively about progressing within my skill set. I'm just going to jump off this and I'm going to start using something that regurgitates stolen work from other people. You'll go forward creatively if you don't use AI, you'll do the opposite if you use AI.

[Hannah Mullane]

Is there an argument for AI being used in certain parts of the process and maybe not in others?

[Justine Bateman]

There's no reason for me to ever use it. Like, to do what? To write a script for me. I am a screenwriter. I love writing. Why would I do that? Would I have it eat something delicious for me as well? I mean, why would I do that? It's pleasurable. I want to do it. So, no, I would never be using it for anything.

[Hannah Mullane]

There's an argument to say filmmakers who don't have big budgets could do more with their films if they could use AI.

[Justine Bateman]

You make great films with any level of money. I mean, it's more difficult to do it all by yourself. Absolutely. I just made two films with hardly any money. You don't need $200 million to make a movie.

[Hannah Mullane]

Do you think using AI is cheating?

[Justine Bateman]

Cheating to do what? I haven't seen anything spectacular come out of using AI yet. I mean, cheating to get to where? A shortcut to make money. Well, then you're not a filmmaker. I mean, if that's all you're doing it for, you're not a filmmaker.

[Hannah Mullane]

Justine has a point. A big benefit of using AI in film is to save money. You make the film quicker so that paycheck comes around faster. And while the money saving argument works for many industries as a reason to use AI, it doesn't quite feel the same for the arts. You're listening to Business Daily on the BBC World Service.

[Ryan]

Hey, Ryan, that was a fast trip. It was like you teleported.

[Hannah Mullane]

Yeah, just got in.

[Gene Marks]

I'll get all my expenses logged, I promise.

[Ryan]

Oh, no, you're okay. SAP Concur uses advanced AI, so your expense report will practically write itself. Quite the breakthrough. It's like we've been teleported into the future. All right, so just curious. Would you give us written permission to convert your matter into energy patterns and reassemble you at, say, random travel destinations?

[Gene Marks]

Margaret, are you building a teleporter?

[Ryan]

No. Yes.

[David Baldacci]

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[Hannah Mullane]

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[Hannah Mullane]

I'm Hannah Mullane. Today we're looking at the businesses and individuals resisting artificial intelligence. Why are they choosing not to use it, and will they be left behind as a result? We've just heard from Justine Bateman, a filmmaker who set up a festival for films that don't use AI. One of her main concerns Is job losses attempting to protect those with the specialist skills in film. Another industry where this is a concern is audiobooks, A recording of a book that's been read aloud, allowing you to listen to the book's content instead of reading it.

[April Doughty]

For me, I highlight parts of the book that in different character voices with different colors.

[Hannah Mullane]

April Doughty is an audiobook narrator. She's been talking me through how she prepares to record a new book.

[April Doughty]

I might mark the book for pace and for emphasis. I'll highlight words that I'm not sure how to pronounce, especially names. So, in fact, one hour of listening from the listener's point of view can take four hours for me to produce. And of course, there's lots of accents involved for different characters. In order to read a nonfiction text, you have to really learn a bit about the subject so you can speak with a voice of authenticity.

[Hannah Mullane]

Just a few months ago, Audible, the biggest audiobook app in the world, announced plans to use AI technology to narrate some audiobooks.

[April Doughty]

There are tools that will allow you to quickly create AI voiced audio. Yes.

[Hannah Mullane]

How does that make you feel? As somebody that has honed their craft and worked in this industry for a.

[April Doughty]

Long time, I don't feel threatened by it because, as I say, they can't tell a story the way a human being can. But I worry that listeners who encounter an audiobook read by an AI voice will have a bad experience, will not be transported into the story like a human being can do for you, and so they won't try audiobooks anymore. You know, there's still a lot of people who have never listened to an audiobook. So if their first experience of an AudioBook is an AI voice, well, they're not going to want to listen to them anymore. You know, an AI audiobook read by a robot doesn't arouse any empathy in the listener. Robots will never experience falling in love or loss or grief or fear. And so a robot can't really communicate a story as a human can.

[Hannah Mullane]

We've got AI moving and changing so quickly that there could come a time where AI can do lots of different voices and lots of different accents. Then we're in a real danger, aren't we? Because it's difficult to maybe tell the difference between AI and a real person.

[April Doughty]

The studies that I've seen recently show that for small, short bits of text, the human ear can sometimes be fooled into thinking that an AI voice might be a human. But for longer text, it doesn't work because the robot doesn't understand the nuance of human emotion.

[Hannah Mullane]

Creative industries seem to be shouting the loudest when speaking out against AI. They want to protect their work and all of the jobs involved in creating films, books, games and art. But there is another area where AI isn't having as much of an impact as you might expect. Chambers of commerce in the UK and the US have conducted research that shows a number of small and medium sized businesses are choosing not to use artificial intelligence.

[Gene Marks]

But really no one is leaning into AI. No one that I have come across and relying on any AI applications or technologies for their core processes of their business. Right now, they just don't trust it.

[Hannah Mullane]

Gene Marks is the CEO of Marks Group, a technology consultancy company in Philadelphia, working with 600 small and medium sized businesses across the US.

[Gene Marks]

The average age of the US small business owner is about 56 years old. Half of us are over the age of 50. Many of us remember all sorts of versions of Microsoft Windows coming out of Microsoft Office that never really seem to quite work until it got to version 3.0. When you talk to the typical business owner in this country, they see the promise of AI, they see where it's going. But you know, they're also still smarting from investing in technology that wasn't quite ready for prime time. And when you ask people, at least when you ask my clients, they're not ready to make those investments yet until they really see that there's proven return on investment and also that it works reliably. And as any consumer user knows of an AI chatbot, it's wrong enough of the time that no business owner would trust these things right now, particularly with their data or sensitive financial information.

[Hannah Mullane]

And there is a big cost element, isn't there, in terms of investing in technology? And those small businesses, they don't have big chunks of money to invest in something that isn't going to give them a very quick return.

[Gene Marks]

It's 100%. My typical client would spend $100,000 on a piece of equipment with five minutes of thought because they know that they're going to be able to use it to produce materials and have a return on investment. When it comes to technology, the return on investment is a lot more difficult to determine. So when a business owner is going to make an investment in technology, they're going to think about it a lot more and really want to see how it's going to make them money. And right now they're not seeing that with AI.

[Hannah Mullane]

And there's a trust issue there with how accurate it might be. But is there also a trust issue with how those tech companies operate.

[Gene Marks]

I would say that the number one question I get from from my clients at my company that are small businesses is the security and privacy of their data. Business owners are not trusting of big tech, that their data will be secure and protected. And remember, whatever application you're using, whatever AI chatbot, even that information is going and being stored in the cloud. So it's out there.

[Hannah Mullane]

And do you think the small businesses that aren't willing to embrace AI, that are pushing back against it a lot, are they going to fall behind as we move further forward?

[Gene Marks]

Of course they will. And they are definitely going to fall behind. They'll fall behind to their existing competitors and they'll fall behind to younger generations that will compete against them. And they will also fall behind in recruiting good employees as well. My biggest advice that I'm giving to a lot of our clients is that now is the time to really beat up your software vendors. No one is expecting you to develop your own AI solution. It's not what you do, you know, I mean, you're a roofer or you're a distributor or you're a manufacturer or you're a restaurateur. You're not in the AI world. However, your software vendors are the ones that are spending hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars developing new features that are leveraging AI. So it's their job to develop that stuff. And it's your job as a business owner. I tell them to talk to your software vendor. You want to lean in to these features so that you can be as efficient as possible in your business. That's your job as a business owner.

[Hannah Mullane]

Whilst many small businesses aren't using AI because it doesn't quite meet their needs, those in creative industries are actively pushing back against the technology in an effort to protect their work and the creative process. Artificial intelligence may have many positive uses in the world, but it's clear there are still, still areas where it's not working so well and others where it's not wanted at all. That's all from this episode of Business Daily, produced and presented by me, Hannah Mullane. If you'd like to listen to more episodes from this series about AI and how it's impacting the business world, just search for Business Daily wherever you get your podcasts.

[Gene Marks]

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